JEDDAH — Minister of Labor Adel Fakieh said wages have increased since the launch of the Nitaqat program in 1432H. On his Twitter account, the minister wrote that there were 356,807 people registered on the program whose salaries were below SR3,000 three years ago. That number declined to 109,654 this year, while the number of those receiving more than SR3,000 increased from 376,087 to over 1.3 million, he said. He added that the number of companies in the green zone has jumped from 40 percent to 81 percent during the same period. In addition, the number of Saudis employed in the private sector was 723,352, while Saudization has more than doubled from 7 percent to 15.1 percent after the Nitaqat program was introduced, he claimed. Fakieh also said the ministry would launch an electronic gate called “Together” for society to participate in ministerial decision making. It will allow for a discussion of any draft legislation from the ministry, he said.
