A total of 965,000 employees earn an average salary of $2,600 or more in Saudi Arabia, according to the latest official Saudi data.
The Saudi private sector continues its high performance in hiring high-wage workers, with about 708,000 employees working in companies and institutions, an equivalent of 73.3 percent.
The Saudi government is developing programs and initiatives to encourage private sector enterprises to generate jobs, most notably employment support from the Human Resource Development Fund (Hadaf).
Hadaf contributes to providing training and employment support programs, bearing a percentage of the wages for employment, training, and qualification for jobs.
The latest data issued by the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) indicated that the number of employees who earn a salary higher than $2,600 in the private sector had reached approximately 708,000, compared to 256,000 employees from government agencies.
The data showed that those earning between $1,300 and 2,600 reached more than one million employees during the second half of this year.
Compared to the same quarter five years ago (2018), official reports show that the total number of those earning $2,600 or more in the private sector reached about 473,000, an increase of 66.8 percent during Q2 of 2023.
According to the data, Riyadh alone contains nearly half of the workers whose wages exceed $2,600 in the public and private sectors in the Q2 of 2023.
- Occupational injuries
The General Organization for Social Insurance indicated that occupational injuries dropped six percent during the second quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2022.
GOSI explained that preventive and educational field efforts and the establishment's commitment to applying occupational health and safety standards for workers have contributed to reducing work injuries.
The past three months have witnessed the registry of 5,845 new work injuries, compared to the same period in 2022, where it recorded 6,198 injuries.
According to the GOSI, the decrease in injuries came despite the increase in the percentage of subscribers by 10.9 percent compared to 9.35 million.
The number of establishments increased by 28 percent, reaching 1,200,000, compared to 890,200 during the same period.
- Partner Program
In March 2021, the Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, Prime Minister and Chairman of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs, launched a program to promote the partnership between the private and public sectors.
The program aims to develop partnerships between the government and private sectors and achieve strategic goals, notably increasing the economy's resilience and supporting prosperity and sustainable growth.
It seeks to activate the role of the private sector and enable it to reach a volume of local investments of up to $1.3 trillion in 2030, which would provide hundreds of thousands of job opportunities.
