RIYADH: The Minister of Human Resources and Social Development Eng. Ahmed bin Suleiman Al-Rajhi said on Thursday that the ministry has recently launched 20 new initiatives based on recommendations from entrepreneurs to help develop the Saudi labor market. Al-Rajhi was speaking at a workshop aimed at supporting private sector facilities in Saudi Arabia. “The ministry, in cooperation with relevant authorities, launched 68 initiatives last year aiming to develop and nationalize the business sector in the Saudi labor market and address related challenges,” he said in his opening speech. “The ministry has achieved everything that was agreed on in meetings and workshops held with businessmen, and the aim of (today’s) meeting is to follow up on the sector’s needs to help develop new initiatives.” He added that the ministry is working on measuring the impact of the 20 most-recent initiatives on the development of the Saudi labor market, explaining that they were designed to “expand the development of the private sector through automation, enable employees of the private sector to develop incentives and rehabilitation programs, and improve the organization of the labor market by implementing relevant legislation.” Al-Rajhi also announced that the ministry has signed agreements and launched several initiatives to nationalize 595,000 jobs by the end of 2020. To date, he said, those initiatives have resulted in more than 323,000 Saudis joining the labor market, adding that the ministry is working on nationalizing engineering and health soon. He finished by saying that the ministry will continue to assist in developing the business sector and increasing Saudis’ participation in economic and national development, in line with Saudi Vision 2030.