Skills and Training

The Sectoral Skills Councils Initiative emerged from the framework of the labor market strategy and was approved under the Council of Ministers Resolution (No. 254) of 2020. This initiative aims to design and activate an interconnected network of councils for the most prominent economic sectors that affect GDP and employment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Sectoral Skill Councils operate as a diverse and flexible system that focuses on bridging gaps in required skills, by collecting and building unified information about sectors and skills, developing the skills framework/professional standards, and cooperating with the competent authorities in the system regarding interventions aimed at developing skills.

The membership of the Sectoral Skills Councils in the Kingdom consists mainly of employers, government agencies, national committees, labor committees, and specialized sector experts.

This initiative aims to build and develop national occupational standards for 300 professions, targeting 2,000 skills. This will positively reflect on the outputs of the education and training system and improve their relevance to labor market requirements. This is achieved through a standard reference to measure an individual's ability to perform specific professional tasks and duties, and the extent to which they possess the necessary skills to perform the work tasks represented by the occupational standard. This is achieved through the development and operation of a National Occupational Standards platform that connects educational institutions, employers, government-contracted companies, and the workforce.

In response to the accelerating global changes in skills, and as one of the national strategic solutions to prepare the workforce for the labor market, 

the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, in cooperation with the Human Capability Development Program, worked to develop the Skills Accelerator initiative. This is a national initiative that aims to raise the skill and productivity level of workers in the private sector and provide them with various skills necessary to accelerate their career growth and enable them to compete and engage in the labor market. This is achieved through an integrated educational journey, training solutions and programs, and development designed according to the highest standards to raise their skills and enable them to perform their work with high professionalism, through a unified national platform for skills.

The initiative works to identify and meet the needs of vital sectors with the largest contribution to GDP and employment rates, such as the tourism sector, the industrial sector, the transportation sector, the retail sector, the energy and mining sector, the financial activities sector, and the health sector.

Overview:

Based on the importance of developing national human capital as a main pillar for achieving the goals of the Kingdom's Vision 2030, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development launched a national campaign in partnership and cooperation with the private sector. This campaign aims to raise awareness of the importance of acquiring skills and training, and activating training activity in private sector establishments by building agreements and memorandums of understanding on training with the private sector. The campaign, in its first phase, achieved its targets within one year: more than one million and seven thousand training opportunities. The final targets of the Wa'ad campaign by the end of 2025 are to provide 1,155,000 training opportunities through cooperation with 14 leading national companies in the field of training. Since the campaign succeeded in achieving its goals in the first phase and also in enabling several groups in society to benefit from it, the Ministry intends to launch the "Wa'ad" campaign in its second edition during the current year. This document will review the mechanism and criteria for participating in "Wa'ad".

Success Partners "First Phase”

Objectives of the National Training Campaign Initiative "Wa'ad”

• Increase awareness of the importance of training activity in private sector establishments.
• Raise the level of partnership between the public and private sectors.
• Raise skills and productivity in the labor market.
• Highlight successful experiences in the private sector.

Eligibility Criteria:

• The establishment must be classified within the "green range" according to the Nitaqat program.
• The establishment must train more than 12% of its Saudi employees annually.
• The establishment must have started its work in the market for 3 years or more.
• The establishment must have diverse training programs and effective training policies.
• The establishment must have the readiness and capabilities to train more than 50,000 Saudi citizens by the end of 2025

Private sector establishments can benefit from the national training campaign "Wa'ad" through simple and easy steps at the following link:

Tracks of the campaign forums in the regions: 

Riyadh Center for Behavioral Approaches is one of the main outputs of the G20, and comes in support of the efforts of both the local and global labor market.
The center's vision is to enable evidence-based solutions to improve labor market outcomes for all. 
The center's mission stems from applying behavioral insights and evidence that work to improve the efficiency/effectiveness of policies and programs, which enhance development, well-being, and prosperity for labor market outcomes. 

Establishing the Riyadh Network and Center for Behavioral Approaches to Labor Market Policies with three primary objectives:

1. Managing knowledge exchange for the G20 Behavioral Approaches Network
2. Implementing behavioral interventions that support labor policies and reforms
3. Supporting the growth and institutionalization of the Saudi labor market evidence ecosystem for guidance in policy making

In accordance with the Council of Ministers Resolution No. 195 dated 4/4/1443 AH, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development worked on the professional accreditation program and launched an electronic platform for professional verification (for expatriate workers) according to simplified and fully automated procedures aimed at verifying that the expatriate professional worker possesses the necessary skills for work requirements in the Saudi market, and registering and documenting educational levels, specializations, and experiences for expatriate workers, whether they are inside the Kingdom or outside it before entering the Kingdom, according to the unified Saudi classification of educational levels and specializations..

Professional Verification:

 Aims to verify that expatriate professionals possess the necessary skills and qualifications, and to ensure their compatibility with the requirements of the Saudi labor market, as well as regulating their entry into the Kingdom. 

Target Group:

Highly skilled expatriate workers who hold a diploma or higher according to the unified Saudi classification of professions.

Professional Verification Program Work:

The program works to verify that the expatriate worker possesses the necessary qualifications and experiences and their compatibility with the requirements of the profession.

The main objectives of the program:

• Documenting certificates:

Verifying the authenticity of academic certificates by authenticating them from the issuing authority.

• Documenting experiences:

Verifying the authenticity of the worker's work experience by authenticating it by the authority issuing the experience certificate.

• Matching experiences and certificates:

Ensuring that the experiences, skills, and academic certificates of the expatriate worker match the needs and requirements of the professional labor market.

Key Features of the Program:   

• Raising the quality level of the workforce in the Saudi labor market. 
• Improving the beneficiary experience and speeding up verification procedures.
• Fully automated electronic system.

For more information about the professional verification program, you can visit the platform   click here