Minister of Labor Adel Faqih today briefed a large number of Saudi businessmen and businesswomen in Jeddah on latest Labor Ministry plans and achievements aiming to rectify the labor market in Saudi Arabia. Addressing a congregation of more than 500 business men and women as well as senior labor ministry officials, Faqih said his ministry's recent package of procedures to purify the country from violators of Iqama and labor regulations, have the professions of foreign workers changed according to each actual work he/she is doing and have them work with their sponsors have garnered ripe fruits. He cited that the rate of Saudis joining workforce doubled from 7% before the introduction of Nitaqat (zones) system to 15.1% following Nitaqat, the rate of unemployment among both females and males reduced from 12.4% to 11.7% in the same period, the rate of employed men reduced from 7.4% to 6.1% in 2013 and that of women from 33.4% to 33333.2% in 2013, the number of Saudis registered in the social insurance register surged by 200%, from 723894 to 14477246, the number of those enrolled in the private sector is more than 723352, the salaries of more than one million Saudis were increased to more than SR3000, the number of Saudi personnel receiving less than SR3000 before launching Nitaqat were 256806 and now reached 109654, the number of those receiving more than SR3000 before launching the system were 376087 and now they are 1,337,592, more business facilities moved to the safe zones of the system as 87% became safe, 7% in the yellow and six percent in the red. --More 23:16 LOCAL TIME 20:16 GMT تغريد
