RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Human Resources Development Fund, known as Hadaf, has launched a new strategy and identity to support the development of a sustainable national workforce in the Kingdom through training, empowerment and counseling programs.
The launching ceremony was attended by the Saudi Minister of Labor and Social Development and chairman of the board of directors of Hadaf, Ahmed bin Sulaiman Al-Rajhi, and leading figures from the public and private sectors.
The new strategy will help the development of human capabilities and allow them to enter and remain sustainable in the labor market. This comes in line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 and labor market plan that encourages the private sector to contribute to localization.
The strategy is a result of several collaborative efforts between government agencies and the private sector to define the fund’s direction and role in supporting the development of national individual capital.
It is built around three key objectives, which consist of supporting human resources development to meet labor market demands, boosting the efficiency of matching supply and demand, and enabling sustainable employment.
Developing the strategy included an assessment of the current situation and an analysis of the fund’s internal and external environments and the satisfaction levels of beneficiaries and employers.
It also includes coordination, cooperation and sharing with stakeholders and business partners in the private sector their vows and proposals.
Earlier in January, Hadaf also signed a cooperation agreement with the National Industrial Development and Logistics Program in Riyadh to encourage the training and recruitment of Saudi trainees.
Furthermore, it claimed that in 2022, it facilitated the employment of 400,000 persons in private-sector firms through its programs and initiatives.
Hadaf aims to fill 40 percent of current employment demands in Saudi Arabia by 2030, according to Ahmed Al-Rajhi, minister of human resources and social development, who also chairs the fund’s board.
“To enable the achievement of its objectives, the fund seeks to increase the contribution to employment by 45 percent, and raise the levels of sustainability of those whose employment has been contributed to above 50 percent, according to the best international standard comparisons,” Al-Rajhi explained.
“Hadaf’s efforts come in line with labor market strategy policies, resettlement decisions and associated policies, economic efforts and initiatives aimed at the development of human capital, which contributed to reducing the unemployment rate among citizens from 13 percent in 2020 to 9.9 percent in 2022.
“These efforts also played a role in the growth of the labor force participation rate of Saudis to 52.5 percent in 2022, and the participation rate of Saudi women to 37 percent in 2022. The fund contributed through its programs and initiatives to the growth of recruitment processes by over 300 percent between 2019 and 2022,” he added.
“We will work in the human resources and social development system to develop basic skills, future skills for national cadres, as well as to develop promising sectors and meet their needs,” Al-Rajhi said.
Turki Al-Jawini, director general of Hadaf, said: “The fund has been able to contribute in 2022 in supporting the employment of about 400,000 beneficiaries to work in private sector enterprises, including about 217,000 Saudi women employees in all regions of the Kingdom.”
He added that the delivery of Hadaf services to some 1.5 million beneficiaries across the country surpassed the fund’s annual target.
Al-Jawini noted that the cost of support programs directed at extension, training and empowerment amounted to about SR5.65 billion ($1.5 billion).
“The fund has supported approximately 138,000 establishments directly and indirectly operating in all vital sectors of the Kingdom, foremost among which are the retail, tourism, industry, education, health and other sectors. The fund's services focused on serving SMEs that account for 81 percent of the total contribution to employment through the fund’s various programs,” Al-Jawini added.
The number of beneficiaries of the vocational counselling program was 337,000 in 2022; the number of beneficiaries of the job alignment program was 609,000, while the empowerment program helped to support 128,000 beneficiaries from groups most in need of entry into the labor market in the same year, he added.
The outputs of the fund’s new strategy resulted in 22 initiatives, including the former Program Redesign Initiative, to become eight focused programs comprising various products and services “based on modern global best practices in this area,” Al-Jawini concluded.
