JEDDAH: The number of private sector workers in Saudi Arabia’s Madinah region rose 2.9 percent in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the last quarter of 2022, according to the latest statistics issued by the General Authority for Statistics. Citing official data, a report carried by the Saudi Press Agency showed that the number of male and female employees in the Madinah region increased to 421,361 in the first quarter of 2023 compared to 410,794 workers in the fourth quarter of 2022. Saudi nationals make up around 24.5 percent of the total workforce, it added. The region ranked sixth countrywide with a strong private sector workforce comprising both genders. Data showed that the number of workers in the region account for 3.6 percent of the total workforce in Saudi Arabia’s private sector. The Kingdom has taken several measures to boost the private sector. The government is collaborating with the private sector to double tourism investments in the coming years and create a sustainable and growing environment, a top government official told a forum in May. Speaking at the Future Hospitality Summit held in Riyadh, Deputy Minister of Investment Attraction Mahmoud Abdulhadi said the Kingdom’s leadership is striving to present investors with the appropriate tools to boost funds into the sector. “Our role today in the concept of a public-private partnership is to make sure that we are working very closely with the private sector to create a sustainable investable tourism environment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” he said. In the coming three to four years, the inflow of investments in the private sector will be more than double what the Kingdom witnessed in the last three to four years, added Abdulhadi.