KSA to Nationalize 36 professions in IT Sector

Riyadh: The Saudi minister of Human Resources and Social Development, Ahmed Bin Sulaiman Al-Rajhi announced a decision to nationalize 36 professions of IT sector to create more job opportunities for the Saudi nationals. The decision calls for an implementation of a Saudization per cent up to 25 in IT establishments with 4 and more employees.

The Ministry has asked the companies to allot quotas before-hand while the Saudization policy comes into force only by 27 June 2021. The decision laid down to nationalize the sector is part of the government strategy to support the graduate Saudis with specific qualifications to obtain decent employment opportunities in the Kingdom. The IT field shall go on a heavy saudization approach since the nation is to witness more number of unemployed graduate Saudis seeking jobs in the coming years, says the ministry.

The new implementation classifies the IT sector into 3 categories- IT and Communications Engineering, Programming & Application Development, Communications Technical & Technical Support to put the decision into force. The Saudization per cent will be applicable only to these categories. Smaller IT and Telecom establishments with less than 4 employees are exempted from the policy.

The ministry has also structured a minimum wage of SR 7000 for Saudi employees in Engineering, Application programming development sectors and a wage of SR 5000 for technical job employees. All institutions are to put the scheme into force within 9 months of time. The government is to reject the legal authorization services to the defaulters of the policy. The ministry has issued a procedural guide for the proper implementation of the decision in its website.