The labor sector stands as a crucial component of the Kingdom's vitality, playing a significant role in bolstering the national economy by offering a wide range of employment opportunities across various fields. This, in turn, enhances social and economic stability and fulfills the objectives of sustainable development in alignment with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030. Eight years into the ambitious journey of Vision 2030, the Kingdom, through the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, has relentlessly exerted efforts to make the Saudi job market attractive and competitive on a global scale. The labor market strategy, through its supportive programs and initiatives, has significantly contributed to realizing Vision 2030's goals, witnessing a historical decline in unemployment rates among Saudis. By the fourth quarter of 2023, the rate plummeted to 7.7%, inching closer to the Vision's target of 7%. This achievement is the result of localization decisions, programs, and initiatives in partnership with the private sector, leading to an increase in the number of Saudis employed in the sector to over 2,343,677.

In the realm of the work environment, the Ministry has launched several programs and initiatives to preserve contractual relationships and enhance the work atmosphere. It has successfully automated over 80% of its services, totaling more than 1,000 digital services. By 2024, the Ministry aims to add 300 new services to its digital platforms. The Qiwa platform, dedicated to the business sector, has documented over 5 million contracts, safeguarding the contractual relationship between employees and employers. This platform facilitates over one million digital operations daily for the labor sector. The rate of amicable settlement of labor disputes has risen to 73%, compliance with private sector establishments to labor laws to 92%, and compliance with localization decisions to 98%.

In the area of supporting and empowering women, the Ministry's efforts aligned with the Vision's targets have led to an unprecedented historic drop in the unemployment rate among Saudi women, falling to 13.7% in the fourth quarter of 2023. The Vision has enabled women to assume leadership positions and activated their participation in economic development, reaching 43.7% in the past year, with their economic participation rate increasing to 35.9%. These positive results reflect the continuing support of the Saudi labor market for national workforce development and achieving the Vision's targets.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development has established 12 sectoral skill councils aimed at building professions according to professional standards that meet market needs. The ministry is working on covering 2,000 skills and developing standards for 300 sectorial professions and career paths by 2025. It has also launched skill acceleration initiatives and training vouchers for individuals to develop high, medium, and low-level skills for the national workforce, thereby boosting their productivity. The initiative targets training over 322,000 private sector employees in 126 professions by 2023, in collaboration with 14 national companies. The "Waad" national training campaign has been launched to motivate the private sector towards training, successfully meeting its 2023 targets by providing over 863,675 training opportunities for the national workforce, with an aspiration to reach 1,155,000 training opportunities by 2025.

In 2023, the Kingdom, represented by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, organized the first international labor market conference of its kind, with the participation of 6,000 attendees from 40 countries.

In an effort to stimulate the private sector, more than 88,000 establishments participated in the labor award competition across various tracks, including localization (13 awards), work environment (7 awards), skills and training (4 awards), and CEO (3 awards).