Despite Saudi Arabia’s launch of initiatives to ensure better employment rates among its nationals, there is still a deficiency in the country’s labor market which affects its “competitiveness” in the global arena, the latest World Economic Forum report shows. Saudi Arabia stands at rank 70, out of the 148 countries analyzed, in terms of “Labor Market Efficiency” on the Global Competitiveness Report, released on Tuesday. The disappointing standing comes despite the kingdom’s Saudization program, “Nitaqat,” which aims to offer job opportunities to nationals and demands that companies operating in the kingdom hire a certain number of Saudi employees to be determined in accordance with the company’s size. Introduced in 2011, the program did increase the numbers of nationals employed in the private sector, Khaled al-Reesh, a Saudi economist, told Al Arabiya English. However, he added that the private sector was not accepting as many Saudi nationals as the government had hoped. According to al-Reesh, companies in the private sector “were not given enough time” to adopt and implement the Saudization regulations and are using several means to “manipulate the program and get out of the red zone and into the green zone.” #Saudization #KSA #SaudiArabia #Jobs #Expats #Jobsforlocals
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 12:07:15 +0000
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