RIYADH — The Tamkeen program for social security beneficiaries has exceeded the target limit by enabling over 29,000 people to join the employment path during the first half of 2023. The targeted limit during the first half of 2030 for the Tamkeen program, implemented by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (MHRSD), was to enable 27,000 beneficiaries to join the employment path. Tamkeen is considered as one of the programs that is provided by the Social Insurance and Empowerment Agency, through a group of provided services via the MHRSD's partnerships that ensure the jobs and training opportunities. It also provides supportive services for the entrepreneurial and productive projects, with the aim of improving the living and economic conditions of the beneficiaries and turning them into producers and financially independent, through 3 main paths. The three paths are: the employment path that provides a job and training opportunity, which one can benefit from via signing in the Nitaqat platform affiliated to the Human Resources Development Fund (HADAF), or via the approved employment platforms, in addition to job forums that is being held in various regions of the Kingdom. The second path empowers the businesses and contributes in providing financial and non-financial support programs, and training for beneficiaries to advance their entrepreneurial work or productive projects, in addition to providing them with advice and assisting in the development of feasibility studies through specialists and experts. The third path is about the rehabilitation path, which aims to provide rehabilitation programs and services for beneficiaries who have the ability for rehabilitation, including health, psychological and social rehabilitation. More than 29,000 people have been empowered in the employment path, this is alongside that MHRSD have empowered more than 6,000 beneficiaries in different regions of Saudi Arabia in the economic path. MHRSD has worked to provide them a package of incentives that enables the beneficiaries to start their own projects, and that through the endeavor of the Social Insurance and Empowerment Agency to find a complementary relation between the labor and social development systems and other interested parties. MHRSD has also cooperated with the Social Development Bank by holding several meetings and workshops that resulted in providing soft loans for the beneficiaries to empower them to start their projects and investments in the labor market. The activities of the Tamkeen program diversified during the first half of 2023, with MHRSD conducting more than 650 training courses and workshops that were held at the social security offices in different regions of Saudi Arabia. The programs were in English language; the basics of cyber security; basics of freelancing; graphic design; marketing and digital transformation; product design and management; financial awareness and many more. The MHRSD has also signed, in different regions in the Kingdom, more 250 Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs), and strategic and regional cooperation and partnership agreements to serve the social security beneficiaries in empowering them in the labor market. In order to create a meeting point between the business owners and the social security beneficiaries who are able to work, MHRSD have held, in all over Saudi Arabia's regions, more than 100 fora for empowerment, through which several sectors participated such as the establishments of private sector who offered a number of jobs and training opportunities in the labor market. It is noteworthy that Article 19 of the Social Security Law stipulates that the MHRSD, in cooperation with HADAF and the relevant authorities, must prepares a rehabilitation plan for each eligible beneficiary in accordance with what the regulations specify in terms of age, qualifications, medical fitness, and the like, in addition to providing job search services for each beneficiary who is able to work.
