The Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) will cover jobs in laboratories, nursing, radiology and pharmacy in order to encourage Saudi youths to work in private hospitals and medical centers. When a private sector firm employees a Saudi for less than SR3,000 in a field covered by the HRDF, the remaining amount of money will be paid by the Fund. “The HRDF has begun gathering information about vacant jobs in all private-sector health facilities and asked these facilities to register their names to benefit from the support the HRDF will provide to the above four specializations,” a source said. A number of health professions like ‘technician' will not be opened for recruitment because there are already many jobs available for men in nursing, radiology, laboratory, pharmacy, therapy, and in keeping medical records. The national health committee of the Saudi Council of Chambers announced earlier its plans to conduct a study to raise the Saudization percentage in the health sector. The study will focus on the difficulties facing the Nitaqat program in the private sector. Ahmad Abdul Karim, Head of Cadre Program, has revealed that the program will add jobs in administration and IT and will guarantee three job opportunities for each student in economic cities. He said: “Cadre Program, which serves economic cities, has two specializations: industrial mechanics and industrial electricity and two more specializations have been added.” Karim also revealed that the program will create three job opportunities for each student and if there are no job opportunities, it will pay SR4,000 for each student and find him a job. In the first year of the program, students take intensive English courses and in the second year they select a specialization and in the third year they submit their projects. The first batch of 750 students are due to graduate next year. Abdul Karim said: “It's not obligatory for students to work in economic cities. They get to choose where they want to work.”
