The Minister of Labor Engineer Adel Faqih said that the provision of job opportunities for citizens to work in the private sector enterprises is important and has become easier now, thanks to legislations that have been taken to promote the participation of citizens in the labor market. On the sidelines of a seminar in which he participated in the second day of the 8th Global Competitiveness Forum 2015 being held here, Engineer Faqih said: 'There are more than 10 million foreigners working in the private sector enterprises of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against a small number of Saudis who work in them, urging Saudi youth to acquire the necessary skills for occupying these jobs,' The Minister of Labor further said that what has been presented by Saudi youth during the last years of initiatives and job opportunities contributed to their employment greater than has been achieved in the past forty years, pointing out that the ministry is trying to use technology and communication with the private sector through the modern means of communication due to an urgent need for this. He also confirmed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has strong economy that can absorb all the skills, and that during the last five years, there were employment programs that can measure and interact with job seekers. He indicated that we are working in order to achieve the best and we have not gotten to the point of complete satisfaction, pointing to attempts to integrate all the new ideas and put them on the open government platform for everyone to discuss them as well as the legislation and try to amend them. For her part, the visiting Italian Minister of Economic Development Federica Guidi said that her country has job opportunities, yet we have to focus on innovation and education, indicating that any type of business fits the youth should be linked to all the elements that are important to them. She explained that a number of initiatives were launched to provide job opportunities associated with new or emerging companies, stressing the need to rely on brains, not only on hands in relating to those jobs and on the link among universities, schools and the real situation in the manufacturing sector. The Italian Minister also stressed the need to provide appropriate opportunities for new companies in order to be developed in the search for ideas, especially in the field of industries, pointing that it does not mean there is a desire to close the door in front of the traditional industries, however, innovations can be introduced to those industries, noting that a large number of laws were modified in order to reduce taxes on companies and workers.
