The Ministry of Labor and Social Development has launched six initiatives to improve the performance of the labor market and raise its efficiency. The objective is to support qualitative Saudization and develop the work environment as effective contributors to achieve Vision 2030, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) quoted Dr. Ahmed Qattan, undersecretary of the Ministry of Labor and Social Development for labor policies, as saying on Saturday. "The ministry has amended the required percentage for employing Saudi students from 25% to 40% in the food services sector. The system aims to provide greater job opportunities for Saudi students in the food services sector as this suits their study schedules. It also enables employers to take advantage of the availability of Saudi students to raise the Saudization percentage in their firms," said Qattan. The second initiative is the issuance of a decision to count one Saudi borrowed from the public sector by the private sector as one Saudi employee. The Saudi should be a full-time employee and he should sign a work contract. The objective is to diversify the Saudi employee's experience and enable him to benefit from work in the private sector. In the third initiative, the ministry separated laundries and their activities (washing, ironing, etc.) from wholesale and retail trade. Now laundries are considered to be independent entities. The Saudization percentage for this sector is being specified, Qattan added. He said that dividing the market into sectors will guarantee proper Saudization percentages for each sector. The fourth initiative is the introduction of a work ethics code. In the fifth initiative, the ministry carried out an awareness campaign on flexible working hours that enables employees to be compensated for the hours spent for some emergency. In the sixth initiative, the ministry approved a new division for medium enterprises by dividing them into three categories depending on the number of employees. Category A, 50 to 99 employees; category B, 100 to 199 employees; and category C, 199 to 499 employees.
