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Occupation group of labour permit’ holder	year
	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Managers and Business Managers	2,734	2,696	3,074	2,805	2,195	2,571	2,917	5,783	17,759	43,168	62,128	65,925
Specialists in Scientific, Technical and Humanities Fields	126,026	141,212	165,374	202,815	193,168	220,620	246,072	346,015	574,031	670,622	731,283	706,920
Technicians in Scientific, Technical and Humanities Fields	128,777	149,232	181,873	215,444	210,863	227,939	274,137	355,758	541,819	679,036	758,143	720,876
Clerical Workers	3,015	2,839	3,035	3,516	2,782	2,787	2,824	4,655	21,724	53,177	61,239	60,311
Sales Persons	87,332	86,441	84,097	89,070	64,240	60,404	76,451	96,774	224,624	397,408	484,391	509,897
Service Persons	976,412	1,052,607	1,107,318	1,227,295	1,097,139	1,097,820	1,321,468	1,476,851	2,093,041	2,206,953	2,600,583	2,681,555
Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fishing	173,927	117,042	182,101	320,285	89,161	85,516	101,872	104,082	122,665	89,735	96,268	95,342
Industrial, Chemical and Food Industries	98,731	107,942	122,535	136,856	128,052	121,719	146,705	157,049	213,935	210,646	228,416	218,854
Engineering Support	762,347	881,072	1,113,632	1,400,231	1,435,208	1,526,254	1,915,647	2,263,432	3,063,833	3,169,703	3,497,091	3,190,830
Autres												4,405
TOTAL	2,359,301	2,541,083	2,963,039	3,598,317	3,222,808	3,345,630	4,088,093	4,811,095	6,874,799	7,520,448	8,519,542	8,254,915

Source: Ministry of Labour
 
1. Data collection methodology

The issuance of the residency and work permits begins with filing an application with the Ministry of Labor.
After its approval, the Ministry of Labour forwards the application to the Ministry of Interior for the issuance of the residency permit.

Classification used for occupations is adapted from ISCO 1988.

2. Institution which provides data 

Ministry of Labour, now Ministry of Labour and Social Development (MLSD) (https://mlsd.gov.sa/en/node)

3. Data availability 

Published in Ministry of Labour’s Statistical Yearbooks
MoL’s Yearbooks until 2015 are no longer available on MLSD’s website.
The “open data” section of the Ministry’s website (Arabic only) has the figure of work permits issued in 2016, by occupation category:
https://mlsd.gov.sa/ar/open-data

Last date of access: 4 November 2018.

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