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DAMMAM — As many as 1,228,605 non-Saudis are holding jobs in the retail and wholesale shops that will be Saudized under a recent decision by the Ministry of Labor and Social Development, the Arabic language daily Al-Watan reported on Saturday quoting market sources.
The ministry started nationalizing four out of 12 activities in retail and wholesale sectors. It said it organized training sessions to qualify the Saudis to take over these jobs.
The four activities to be nationalized before the end of September include car and motorbike showrooms, shops selling ready-made garments for men and children, home and office furniture shops and shops dealing in home appliances.
It said a total of 1,661,181 people work in these shops including more than 1.2 million non-Saudis, who represent about 74 percent of their total workforce
The ministry said by the end of October it would nationalize three activities – namely shops selling electric and electronic equipment, while in November it would nationalize five other activities, which include shops selling medical equipment, building material, car spare parts, carpets and sweets.
According to the ministry, the nationalization of jobs will include as many as 471,887 retail and wholesale shops.
According to the General Authority for Statistics (GaStat), there were 95,298 car and motorbike showrooms in the Kingdom in 2017. It added that there were a total of 340,210 retail and 36,379 wholesale shops by the end of that year.
It said there were 758,791 non-Saudis working in retail shops and 170,027 in wholesale shops.
The authority said there were 81,129 Saudis, representing 21.3 percent working in car and motorbike showrooms against 299,787 non-Saudis, who represented about 78.7 percent.
The retail shops had a total workforce of 1,039,188, consisting of 280,398 Saudis (27 percent) and 758,791 non-Saudis (73 percent).
According to the GaStat, 71,050 Saudis, representing about 29.5 percent, were working in 241,076 wholesale shops against 170,027 non-Saudis who represented about 70.5 percent of the total.
