Cairo: The number of employees in the Saudi private sector soared to 11.37 million last month, indicating significant job growth, according to an official labour agency.
The Saudi National Labour Observatory (NLO) reported in a monthly publication that the workforce comprises 9 million expatriates and 2.3 million Saudis, including 971,323 female citizens.
In May alone, approximately 30,881 Saudis joined the private sector for the first time, up from 18,540 in April. 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, and real estate.
This labour policy, known as “Saudisation,” incentivises private sector enterprises to create jobs for Saudi citizens. As part of these efforts, Saudi Arabia began localising insurance sales jobs in April, following a related decree issued four months earlier.
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Additionally, the kingdom has restricted human resources positions to its nationals. The Ministry of Human Resources announced the second phase of a decree to localise consultancy services professions by 40% of the overall workforce.
The first phase of this decree took effect in April last year, mandating that 35% of employees in these jobs must be Saudis. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia plans to partially localise engineering jobs, with the decision taking effect on July 21.
This initiative aims to Saudise 25% of engineering roles in private sector establishments that employ at least five workers in these positions.
