Jadiroon·Manual

Saudization (Nitaqat)

For HR administrators

Saudization — or Nitaqat (نطاقات) — is the Saudi Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (HRSD) programme that sets minimum ratios of Saudi nationals in private-sector workforces. Jadiroon tracks Nitaqat per economic activity: a workspace declares every activity it operates under, and each activity gets its own live Saudization tier, so you can see at a glance whether each line of business is compliant, how far it is from the next tier, and which roles are gated for Saudi nationals.

Where to find it

/{slug}/app/people/saudization. The page has three tabs. Overview carries the general picture — your Saudi vs non-Saudi split, the unassigned-seats count, a worst-tier-first summary of every declared activity, and (for HR admins) the Update Nitaqat rules panel. Nitaqat & positions is the working surface where you declare activities, tag seats to them, and read each activity's analysis and tier ladder. Localized professions (المهن الموطّنة) tracks the separate, profession-level Saudization quotas — see below. Reading is open to workspace members; declaring activities and tagging seats is HR-Administrator only.

Declaring your economic activities

A workspace can conduct more than one Nitaqat economic activity — for example, an operating company plus a services subsidiary, each ranged separately by HRSD. On the Nitaqat & positions tab, use the Add activity control under the activity list to declare each activity your workspace operates, chosen from the 41 economic activities in the Developed Nitaqat model (see below). Only declared activities appear and become a tagging target — nothing is inferred automatically from your workforce.

You can remove a declared activity with the ✕ on its row in the list. If any seats are still tagged to it, Jadiroon warns you and untags those seats back to Unassigned rather than dropping the assignment silently.

The Nitaqat tab: activities and analysis

The Nitaqat tab is a master–detail layout. A left-hand activity list shows every declared activity — name, tagged headcount, Saudization %, and tier badge — ordered worst-tier-first so the activity that needs attention sits on top. Select one to open its detail pane, computed only from that activity's tagged seats:

  • Saudization % — Saudi headcount ÷ total headcount among seats tagged to that activity.
  • Tier — one of: Platinum, High Green, Mid Green, Low Green, or Red. Platinum is the highest; Red is non-compliant. (The Developed Nitaqat model has no Yellow band.)
  • Gap to next tier — additional Saudi hires needed to move that activity up a tier, accounting for the fact that each Saudi hire also grows the activity's total headcount.
  • Tier ladder — the full Red → Platinum ladder, with the current rung highlighted, shown alongside the analysis.
  • Required % by tier — the guideline number for every band (Low Green, Mid Green, High Green, Platinum): the exact Saudization percentage this activity must reach to sit in each tier, evaluated at that activity's own headcount and the current plan year. The band the activity currently occupies is emphasised, so you can read the next target at a glance.

The plan year in force (2026, 2027, or 2028) is noted in the detail header and advances automatically. An activity with zero tagged seats shows an explicit "no employees tagged yet" state instead of a computed tier.

Tagging seats to an activity

Every employee's seat (their Position) is tagged to exactly one Nitaqat activity — not the role, not the person, the seat itself. Two seats sharing the same role can belong to different activities, which is why one job family's headcount can legitimately split across several activities.

The detail pane keeps its position picker tucked away: once seats are linked it shows a compact summary (N positions linked, with a chip per job family) plus an Edit positions button. Press it to reveal the picker:

  1. The picker lists every position by its position name in a fixed-height, scrollable list, grouped by sub-sector and then by job family. Both grouping levels collapse, the search box filters by role, family, or sub-sector, and a row of status filters — All · Unassigned · This activity · Other activities — narrows the list to seats that are free, already tagged here, or held by another activity. Search and filter combine.
  2. Click a seat to tag it to the open activity — it gets a check mark immediately (no separate "assign" step). Click again to untag it back to Unassigned.
  3. A seat that belongs to a different activity is locked: it shows a 🔒 chip with that activity's name and can't be ticked here. To move it, untag it from its current activity first. This is what enforces one-activity-per-seat.
  4. Select all, on either the sub-sector or job-family header, tags every assignable seat under it in one action — it never touches the locked ones. The header shows how many seats are selectable.
  5. Press Done to collapse the picker back to the summary.

Tagging is HR-Administrator only; other roles see the analysis and ladder but not the picker.

Unassigned employees

Employees in untagged seats are surfaced on the Overview tab as an Unassigned seats count, with a shortcut into the Nitaqat tab. They are excluded from every activity's ratio until tagged — an unassigned employee neither helps nor hurts any activity's Saudization percentage. Tag every seat to keep your indicators accurate.

The headcount curve

Jadiroon computes each activity's tier with the Developed Nitaqat model (نطاقات المطور, HRSD decision 182495, 22 January 2026). Two things changed from the older program, and Jadiroon follows the new rules:

  1. Activities were merged into 41 economic activities. These are licensed-activity classifications, distinct from your competencies Sector.

  2. The required ratio is linked to headcount, not to discrete size bands. For each activity and plan year the required Saudization percentage is:

    required % = curve constant × ln(activity headcount) + year constant

    where the curve constant and year constant are published by HRSD per activity. The plan escalates most activities' bars each year across 2026, 2027, and 2028; Jadiroon uses the current plan year automatically. Because the bar depends on ln(headcount), tagging or untagging seats shifts that activity's required percentage — the "gap to next tier" figure accounts for the fact that each Saudi hire also grows the activity's total.

A workspace with zero declared activities falls back temporarily to a legacy sector estimate. Declare your first activity for accurate, publication-aligned figures.

The home dashboard summary

The Nitaqat card on the workspace home page summarizes across all declared activities rather than showing one number: it displays your worst tier among them, plus a note such as "3 activities · 1 in red". Open the card to see each activity's own indicators on this page.

Saudi-only and Saudi-priority roles

In addition to the dashboard, Jadiroon enforces Saudization preferences at the role level:

  • Saudi-priority (PREFER) — the public job page shows a "Saudis preferred" chip on this role. Non-Saudi candidates can still apply; the chip is informational.
  • Saudi-only (ONLY) — the public job page hides this role from non-Saudi candidates. If a non-Saudi candidate reaches the application URL directly, they see a bilingual notice explaining the role is restricted to Saudi nationals. Non-Saudi applications are blocked at the form level.
    • The same ONLY flag filters the role out of the Internal mobility surface for non-Saudi employees, so they are not shown a lateral move they cannot be considered for.

These flags are set per role during role creation or editing. They are separate from the workspace-level Saudization rate — they affect which candidates see and can apply to a specific role.

Nationality in the People roster

The People roster at /{slug}/app/people shows a nationality chip beside each person's name. Saudi nationals carry an emerald chip; non-Saudis carry a neutral chip. Hover or tap the chip to see the full nationality name.

The nationality field is set during the candidate application (candidates self-report their nationality and national ID / iqama number). After hire, HR can update it from the employee's record if there is a discrepancy.

Updating Nitaqat rules

HRSD revises the Developed-Nitaqat (نطاقات المطور) percentages periodically. When it does, an HR admin can update this workspace's thresholds without waiting for a platform release — directly from /{slug}/app/people/saudization.

In the Update Nitaqat rules card (visible to HR admins only):

  1. Paste the HRSD guide link (e.g. the نطاقات المطور evidential guide) or upload the file (PDF, XLSX, or TXT).
  2. Jadiroon reads the document and uses AI to extract the required Saudization percentage for each band — Low-Green, Mid-Green, High-Green, Platinum — for your workspace's economic activity only.
  3. You review each band side-by-side: the current percentage, the new percentage (editable), and the change. Bands the document does not mention are left unchanged.
  4. Confirm to apply. The new numbers take effect immediately for this workspace and drive the hero, tier ladder, and "next band" calculation.

The override applies to this workspace only — other workspaces keep the built-in defaults. Use Reset to default at any time to remove the override and fall back to the shipped thresholds.

What Jadiroon does not do

  • Submit Nitaqat reports to HRSD. Compliance filings are done through the Absher / Qiwa government portal. Jadiroon's dashboard is a monitoring tool, not a filing system.
  • Calculate VAT-exempt allowances or GOSI contributions. Payroll and social insurance are not part of Jadiroon's scope.
  • Validate national ID numbers. The ID field is stored as-entered; Jadiroon does not call a government API to verify it in real time.

Localized Professions: a second, independent compliance track

Nitaqat is not the only Saudization rule HRSD enforces. Alongside the activity-level Nitaqat tier, HRSD sets a mandatory minimum Saudization percentage for specific profession groups — Engineering, Accounting, Sales, Legal, and others — evaluated against that profession's own headcount at your establishment, not against your workforce as a whole. An establishment can sit in a green Nitaqat tier and still be in violation of a profession-level quota, so Jadiroon tracks the two tracks independently. The Localized professions tab (المهن الموطّنة) — the third tab alongside Overview and Nitaqat & positions on /{slug}/app/people/saudization — is where you monitor it.

The profession groups

Jadiroon ships with the HRSD-published profession groups, each carrying its own mandatory target and a minimum-headcount trigger:

  • Engineering — 30% mandatory Saudi ratio
  • Engineering (technical) — 30%
  • Accounting — 40%
  • Sales — 60%
  • Procurement — 70%
  • Marketing — 60%
  • Legal — 70%
  • Telecom & IT engineering — 25%
  • Software development — 25%
  • Technical support — 25%
  • Consulting — 40%
  • Project management — 40%

A group only becomes applicable once your headcount in that profession reaches its minimum trigger (for example, some groups — Legal, Consulting, and Project management — apply from a single employee in the profession, while others require 3–5). Below the trigger the group shows Not applicable instead of a computed ratio.

Reading the table

For each applicable group, the tab shows:

  • Current ratio — Saudi headcount ÷ total headcount in that profession at your establishment (e.g. "3/8 (38%)"), or a dash if not yet applicable.
  • Target — the mandatory minimum percentage for the group.
  • Result — a Met badge, or +N hires showing how many additional Saudi hires would close the gap at the current headcount.

A summary strip totals how many groups are applicable, met, in violation, and how many Saudi hires are needed across all groups combined.

Membership: job family → profession group

Jadiroon auto-derives who counts toward each profession group from every employee's job family, using a best-effort default crosswalk shipped with the platform — a reasonable starting point, not a guarantee that every job family lands in the profession HRSD would assign it to. HR admins can correct any mismatch from the Job-family mapping editor on the same tab: reassign a job family to a different profession group, or to None to exclude it, at any time. Reading the table is open to all workspace members; editing the mapping is HR-Administrator only.

Indicative numbers — verify before official reporting

Next

Hiring configuration — the auto-advance threshold, internal-mobility-first toggle, and stage email templates — is covered next.

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