Saudi nationals may be employed in charitable societies and non-profit civil society institutions to boost Saudization percentage as set by the Nitaqat Program. The Ministry of Labor's initiative is being likened to a lifebuoy thrown to help these enterprises surpass the regulations in a legal fashion. The announcement was made by the Advisor to the Minister of Labor, Dr. Muhammad Mahmood, at a workshop by the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce in Dammam titled “Employing Saudi youths in social service programs”. Dr Muhammad said, “The mechanism will help the unemployed get opportunities in suitable fields. This trend will also serve companies with difficult professions to upgrade their status to the Green Zone of the Nitaqat System. He said the mechanism is meant to help charitable societies and nonprofit civil institutions due to their limited financial income such that the private companies bear the Saudi employees' salaries and register them in the social insurance system. The workshop was attended by the Director of the Human Resources Development Fund (Hadaf) Tariq Al-Ansari, a number of businessmen, representatives of charitable societies and other concerned bodies. The attendees also discussed including unemployed youths in the social service program due to the number of occupations in which they cannot work. This is either due to the nature of the occupation or the tough conditions in professions related to land or marine transport, contracting, working as goldsmiths, cleaning, agriculture, etc.
