RIYADH — Saudi Arabia's Minister of Human Resources and Social Development (MHRSD) Eng. Ahmed Al-Rajhi launched on Wednesday the second edition of the Tawteen (Localization) program, which aims to create 170,000 job opportunities for Saudi nationals. The ministry clarified that the jobs that are targeted to be localized are in different sectors, including 25,000 in the industrial sector; 20,000 in the health sector; 20,000 in transport and logistic services; 20,000 in real estate and construction; 30,000 in tourism and 15,000 in while 40,000 jobs are distributed in other sectors. During the Tawteen launch ceremony, Al-Rajhi stressed that the success achieved in the first edition of the program is considered to be a great incentive to continue working to achieve the goals of the employment strategy and Vision 2030. Tawteen 2 will focus on developing job opportunities with a leading role for supervisory authorities with increased emphasis on required cadres in qualitative technical professions and specializations. Al-Rajhi noted the Tawteen 2 program targets to create 170,000 jobs for young Saudi men and women. He added that the success of this phase will depend on the support of supervisory authorities, who will determine the need for employment in different fields to achieve the target of bringing the unemployment levels to less than 7%, which means the actual level of unemployment would be less than 3.5%. The supervisory authorities in this phase of Tawteen will be controlled by six ministries, namely the Ministry of Tourism; the Ministry of Commerce; the Ministry of Transport and Logistic Services; the Ministry of Health; the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing; and the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources. This phase of Tawteen will include the "supply and demand foresight" program, which will work on identifying the needs of the labor market and also the number of jobs that are required to be created, Al-Rajhi said. He stressed that the main goal of the Tawteen program is to identify the specializations needed in the labor market. With regard to the job creation indicator, Al-Rajhi said it will be announced through a quarterly report on the levels of new job creation in various sectors and professions. It will give a clear indication of the extent of the job sector's growth. He confirmed that they have launched an initiative under the name of "Skills accelerator and training vouchers", which aims to raise the employee's level from intermediate to advanced.
