As part of the government spending efficiency program, the Budget Forecast report published on Thursday by the Saudi Ministry of Finance shows its efforts to increase employment localization within the asset and utility management sector, Arab News reports.
The ministry’s plans envision increasing the cumulative number of employed nationals in the sector from 74,800 to 90,100 jobs by the end of this year.
During last month’s meeting in the Chamber of Commerce in Al-Jouf region, Human Resources and Social Development Minister Ahmed Al-Rajhi stressed that during 2021, Saudization programs aim to create 213,000 jobs for Saudi nationals.
According to Al-Rajhi, the Nitaqat localization program linked the Saudization rates to an equation based on the increased participation of Saudis in the labor market and the number of workers to facilitate the private sector’s interaction with the program.
Since the launch of Vision 2030- the national strategy to enhance the competitiveness of national human capacities locally and globally- the Kingdom has been working on enhancing spending efficiency and increasing its effectiveness as well as creating different goals to achieve the financial savings estimated at SR200 billion by 2023 and additional fiscal savings estimated at SR100 billion by 2025.
The government’s efforts resulted in surpassing the saving target more than double to SR502 billion from 2018 to the second quarter of 2021.
Under the auspices of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom has recently launched the Human Capacity Development Program aimed to attain Saudi Vision 2030.
Due to the intensified efforts to create jobs for nationals by the government and the continued recovery of the economy from the pandemic, the unemployment rate in the Saudi workforce in Saudi Arabia has decreased to 11.3% in the Q2 2021 compared to 11.7% in Q1, the latest official data shows.
Yet, the participation of the Saudi nationals in the labor force fell slightly to 49.4% percent, suggesting that some citizens are dropping out of the job market.
According to the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) estimates based on the Labor Force Survey (LFS), the total unemployment rate of the working age population (15+ Saudi and non-Saudi) dropped from 9% to 6.6% in Q2 of 2021.
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