Cairo: The private sector workforce in Saudi Arabia rose to 11.4 million last month, an increase of 64,000 against June, an indication of constant job growth in the sector, recent official labour figures have shown.
The Saudi National Labour Observatory (NLO) reported in a monthly publication that the overall numbers of the private sector employees in the kingdom included 9.1 million expatriates comprising 383,499 females. In July, the number of Saudis employed by the private sector reached a total of 2.342 million including 956,639 females.
A total of 34,606 Saudis joined the private sector for the first time in July, according to the report.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has launched several initiatives aimed at employing its nationals and replacing foreign workers in various fields such as education, telecommunications, real estate and healthcare. This labour policy, known as “Saudisation,” incentivises private sector enterprises to create jobs for Saudi citizens.
As part of these efforts, the kingdom last month embarked on partially localising engineering jobs. The step aims to Saudise 25% of engineering roles in private sector establishments that employ at least five workers in these positions.
In April, Saudi Arabia began localising insurance sales jobs, following a related decree issued four months earlier.
The Ministry of Human Resources said the sales professions are initially Saudised by 15 per cent, covering jobs of sales manager, retail sales manager, sales specialist, wholesale manager, information technology and telecom equipment specialist, and sales agent.
In September, the kingdom unveiled a plan to Saudise the dental profession, which partially went into effect in March.
Compliant private sector institutions stand to benefit from support programmes offered by the Ministry of Human Resources to motivate them to employ Saudis. These incentives include support for finding qualified employees, training, employment continuity, and access to Saudi employment support programmes.
Saudi Arabia is also implementing a regional employment programme for its nationals.
