‘Future of Work’ targets job seekers in less developed Saudi areas: Takamul CEO

The Future of Work initiative is seeking to target job seekers and freelancers in less developed regions within Saudi Arabia on the short run, Takamul Holding CEO Ahmad Al-Yamani, told Argaam in an exclusive interview at the Future Investment Initiative 2019 in Riyadh.

He further explained that “Future of Work” in an entity recently launched by the Ministry of Labor and Social Development that aims to activate and incentivize the new models of work, which have not existed before 10 years.

“Our primary target today, at least with the telework program, is to look at the less developed regions to find people who are willing to work different types of jobs and accept lower pay in many cases, and eventually prepare the platform to make them prosper and grow,” he said.

Al-Yamani added that these job seekers face geographic barriers because they cannot move to more populated cities such as Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam, for family and social reasons.

He confirmed that more than 15,000 people are enrolled in the program and are providing their services to companies in other Saudi cities.

Takamul CEO noted that these efforts would lead to solving unemployment in less developed areas, high cost of labor for employers in major cities due to the imbalance between supply and demand, as well as reducing the pressure on the infrastructure in these cities, and distributing the wealth across the Kingdom.

On the efficiency of such programs, Al-Yamani said that within the prevail of Artificial Intelligence, big data and data analytics “I don’t see many types of work that cannot be done with one of the new modes.”

He added that the duration of the relation between the employer and employee has been diminishing, due to technology enablement through online platforms such as Freelancers.com, Appworks, and Uber.

This initiative is supported by three facts; Millennials and youth no longer prefer to have long relationships, the facilitator role of the government which has eased the regulations to accommodate these new modes of work, as well as the high rates of unemployment, specifically in the Middle East.

“We need to find unconventional and creative solutions because relying on the existing business growth will not deal with unemployment problem,” he asserted.

Al-Yamani also said that Takamul Holding has more than 500,000 users across its platforms who are availing their services and getting paid for them including delivery, ride-hailing apps or simple freelance platforms.

He asserted that these people are not necessarily job seekers and maybe students, therefore, Takamul is trying to pull more job seekers into this pool as freelancers, flexible workers or teleworkers.

“If we can consider that a ratio of 10 percent of these people is not employed somewhere else, we would be talking today about a platform that is enabling 50,000 jobs. We are looking to double this number over the next five to six years,” he stated.

On the 2020 plans, Al-Yamani confirmed that the Future of Work company will be operational; it will have a board of directors and an executive team.

“It will provide more than 50,000 jobs for Saudis across the diversified modes of work,” he concluded.

Write to Christine El Cheikh at christine.elcheikh@argaamplus.com