Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH – More than 80,000 Saudi men and women working in the private sector will benefit from the support initiative being carried out by the Human Resources Development Fund (HADAF).

The initiative’s beneficiaries include those who joined the private sector from the beginning of July 2019 and have not received any support from the HADAF so far.

This is one of the initiatives recently launched by the Fund as part of government support initiatives to enable private sector enterprises, as well as to ensure their stability and develop their performance in light of the current exceptional economic situation which is further impacted by the coronavirus outbreak.

The HADAF called on the private sector establishments to register online to take advantage of the initiative. In order to register, they need to visit the page of the National Business Portal (TAQAT) via the link: https://www.taqat.sa/web/guestemployer/employment-subsidy-program.

Then they should activate the “employment support program” "from the “business owners tab,” create a new support request, add the request data and the employees to be supported, save the request and send the information. The firm must ensure that it meets the required terms and conditions for receiving the support from the Fund.

The HADAF has earmarked SR1 billion to support Saudis who were employed in the private sector after July 1, 2019 and are drawing salary ranging between SR4,000 and SR15,000 and they have not previously benefited from the employment support programs of the Fund.

They can benefit from a support of 30 percent retrospectively for a period of two years, and an additional percentage is added to the support if the employee is a woman or a person with disabilities or the employment is in non-major cities or in a small establishment.

It is noteworthy that the HADAF has announced the allocation of about SR5.3 billion to support the employment, training and empowerment of Saudi men and women in four areas, stressing that it will provide full support to the firms out of an effective strategic partnership with the private sector to enable it to implement Saudization.