Unlock the Gateway to Success in Saudi Arabia: PROVEN’s In-Person Event Screams Victory
Saudi Arabia strives to create an attractive life and work environment for expatriates.
Saudi Arabia strives to create an attractive life and work environment for expatriates.
According to the latest news on Saudization plans, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) plans to implement it at the beginning of 2021.
The Government Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) is a premium government institution in Saudi Arabia that deals with social insurance in the country. Headquartered in Riyadh, GOSI is a financially and administratively independent organization that is supervised by a board of thirteen directors. The board of directors consists of insured persons, employers as well as officials from government departments. Since its inception in 1973, GOSI has constantly worked towards improving social insurance benefits meted out to the contributors and their family members.
As of the third quarter of 2019, Saudi nationals occupied nearly 24% of the workforce. It was considered a slight, but quick increase from the first quarter of the same year. This is an indicator that what the Vision 2030, along with Saudization are accomplishing is vitalizing the young society of Saudi Arabia, increasing their involvement in the workforce and bringing new and exciting elements of art and culture into their lives.
The General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) carries out the social insurance regulations in Saudi Arabia. GOSI collects contributions from employers, covers social insurance according to the law and pays benefits for insured persons or their families. The organization provides medical treatment, allowances and services for injured or disabled individuals or to the families of insured individuals who are deceased, in which case the death pension is received. GOSI calculations vary across employee nationalities with employees split into three main groups, Saudi Nationals, GCC nationals who have varying contributions and other expat workers. For Saudi nationals in the private sector GOSI contributions equal 22% of the maximum monthly applicable earnings (9% each for the employee and employer for pension contributions, 1% each for unemployment contributions and 2% for occupational hazard which is covered by the employer). The monthly earning combines basic salary, housing allowance and commissions. In-kind housing is equivalent to a two-month basic salary divided by twelve months. Meanwhile, minimum salary 1500 SAR will be counted as half Saudi and minimum salary 3000 SAR will be counted as full Saudi.
The yellow band of Nitaqat has been canceled, effective January 26, 2020, to stimulate the Nitaqat system and encourage companies to check their compliance.
The Saudization ratios show the number of Saudi nationals are needed for your company size and industry. In addition to ratios, companies need to consider professions that are Saudized, some of them are listed below.
Many companies struggle with Saudization and achieving high compliance in the hi-green and platinum levels. Multinationals and SMEs have different challenges related to Saudization because of their size and their advantages when it comes to Saudization.
Saudization is an important part of operating in the Kingdom and is applicable to all companies. It is the nationalization scheme the government introduced to increase the participation of Saudi nationals in the private sector workforce.
Recruiting for Saudization can be a challenge, but with support from a local partner, companies can more easily move towards Saudization compliance.