Minister of Labor and Social Development Mufrej Al-Haqbani said the National Labor Gateway "Taqat" will restructure the local employment market in line with the National Transformation Program (NTP) and will accelerate the Saudization drive. "Taqat will help employers hire well-qualified Saudi hands, instead of relying on foreign labor," he said while launching the gateway in Riyadh on Sunday evening, the Saudi Press Agency reported. Al-Haqbani, who is also president of the Board of Human Resources Development Fund (HADAF), said Taqat was not merely an electronic gate but it is also a tool to evaluate the employment market by making available suitable jobs for qualified young Saudi men and women and giving them better training to take up challenging careers. "The gateway will extend integrated services to all parties involved in production and hence the employers shall communicate with Taqat about their actual requirements for employees so as to hire the maximum number of Saudis and bring down recruitment of foreigners to the minimum," he said. Speaking on the occasion, Abdul Kareem Al-Najeedi, director general of HADAF, said the launching of Taqat shows the keenness of the Saudi leadership in making investments in the human resources development as a major component of sustainable development and the main contributor to the momentum of economic growth being witnessed in the Kingdom. He said that Taqat comes to keep pace with the Kingdom's Vision 2013 and NTP 2020 that aims at creating the best work environment for all Saudi jobseekers in a way realizing their aspirations and thus taking part in the national development. A large number of ministry officials, representatives from the public and private sectors as well as workers, employers and government entities attended the launching ceremony. The launching of Taqat comes within the Kingdom's Vision 2030 along with the objectives set under NTP that aim to generate enough job opportunities by 2020 and enhance efforts for aligning educational outcome with the job market. The ministry said Taqat would serve as an all-in-one platform for the labor market through providing a wide range of full-fledged services for job seekers and employers alike.
