Saudi minister: 2.7 million Saudis now employed in private sector

Summary

• Saudi private-sector employment of nationals has reached 2.7 million, the labor minister said in Hail.
• Training slots under the Wa'ad campaign rose to 4.5 million, with 2 million completed.
• The figures track Vision 2030 targets tying localization to a rapidly expanding non-profit sector.

The latest

Saudi nationals employed in the private sector have climbed to 2.7 million, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development Ahmed Al-Rajhi said. Speaking at a Hail Chamber of Commerce program during a visit to the region, he also put training and qualification opportunities under the Wa'ad campaign at 4.5 million, with 2 million of them already completed.

Details

• The headline number: Al-Rajhi said the count of Saudis working in private-sector jobs has jumped to 2.7 million, the central figure of a ministry push to move nationals out of dependence on public-sector hiring. He did not break the total down by sector or by year of entry.
• The training push: Opportunities offered under Wa'ad, the ministry's flagship national training campaign, have risen to 4.5 million, according to the minister, with 2 million completed so far. The campaign is framed as a human-capital program aligning the Saudi workforce with Vision 2030 skill requirements.
• Fund support: More than 1.5 million people have benefited from training programs run by the Human Resources Development Fund, known as HADAF, with support exceeding SR3.8 billion, Al-Rajhi said. That spending sits alongside Wa'ad as the financing arm of the qualification effort.
• Non-profit growth: The non-profit sector's contribution to gross domestic product has increased to 1.55%, worth more than SR73 billion, according to the minister. The number of registered organizations passed 8,000 by 2026, growth he put at more than 382%.
• Sector employment: Staff working in non-profit organizations rose from 19,200 in 2017 to 141,432 in 2024, Al-Rajhi said, while development spending over the same period climbed from roughly SR1.6 billion to SR6.1 billion — close to a fourfold increase on both measures.
• Specialization: Organizations specialized in supporting development priorities account for about 97% of the total, the minister said, indicating the expansion has been concentrated in bodies tied to state development goals rather than general-purpose charities.
• Service satisfaction: Beneficiary satisfaction with services delivered by non-profit organizations has reached nearly 90%, according to Al-Rajhi. He did not identify the survey behind the figure or the period it covers.
• Volunteering: Volunteers in the Kingdom exceeded 1.7 million by 2025, the minister said, with roughly 185,000 taking part in volunteer work serving pilgrims — a pool the ministry counts as part of its broader social-development capacity.
• Financing arm: The Social Development Bank has extended total support of SR170 billion since its establishment, Al-Rajhi said, without specifying how that lending splits between microfinance, small enterprises and social loans.

Background

Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 program sets targets for cutting unemployment among nationals and shifting job creation toward private employers, with localization quotas and subsidized training used as the main policy tools across sectors.

Between the lines

The minister paired private-sector employment with non-profit expansion in the same remarks, and the numbers show why: a sector that grew from 19,200 staff in 2017 to 141,432 in 2024, with 97% of organizations tied to development priorities, is now a jobs channel in its own right, not only a social one.

What's next

Watch whether the ministry publishes a breakdown of the 2.7 million figure by sector, and whether the remaining 2.5 million uncompleted Wa'ad training slots are filled on the campaign's stated Vision 2030 timeline.

Source: Saudi Gazette, via ZAWYA