Saudi Arabia: Businesses put on notice over Saudisation

Cairo: The Saudi Ministry of Human Resources has asked establishments to comply with rules employing Saudis and ensure they make up no less than 75% of their overall workforce.

The ministry said establishments must attract Saudis, employ them, and provide them with appropriate work opportunities.

The ministry has already set up the “Nitaqat” (Ranges) programme to calculate the job localisation rates and automatically classify establishments.

The programme comprises the “Platinum Range”, a category which includes businesses that excel in localisation; and the “High Green Range” which includes establishments that are average in terms of Saudization rates within the top third.

There are, moreover, the “Yellow Range”, a category covering entities that have not achieved the required localisation rates, and the “Red Range” covering entities with the lowest percentage of localisation.

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, engineering and healthcare.

This labour policy, known as “Saudisation”, incentivises private sector enterprises to create jobs for Saudi citizens.

Saudi Arabia is also implementing a regional employment programme for its nationals.

The wages of Saudis working in the private sector rose by 45% during 2024, while the private sector employed 50.5% of the overall citizens employed during the same year, the Ministry of Human Resources has recently reported.

During the same year, the number of Saudis working in the private sector rose to 2.4 million male and female employees, including 361,000 who entered the labour market for the first time.