It had the support of the Ministry of Labor represented in the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF), Ministry of Social Affairs represented in the Social Charity Fund, Saudi Credit and Savings Bank, and other governmental authorities. Job opportunities were created throughout the Kingdom through diversified BRJ’s job creation programs.

Reviewing BRJ’s results for December 2011, Executive Director of BRJ Saudi Arabia Abdulrahman Al-Fihaid stated that the social organization has created 4,109 job opportunities through its productive household program during December 2011.

Based on the microfinance concept, the productive household program provides interest-free loan starting from SR3,000 to a group of three to five women to start their own micro projects such as those involving accessories, wedding accessories, gift-wrapping, embroidery, perfumes and perfume mixtures, makeup and other others that could be run from home.

Al Fihaid said the Ahsa branch created 356 jobs, followed by Hail branch (352) and the Al-Samir branch in Jeddah (313). By the end of December, the loan collection ratio has reached 98 percent.

According to Ahmed Muqalam, BRJ general director at the Madinah, Hail and Tabuk areas, the small projects finance program has created 562 job opportunities during December 2011 by financing the same number of small projects.

The program provides young men and women who have creative ideas but lacking financial resources with interest-free loans of up to SR150,000 to implement their new or existing projects.

Muqalam added that the BRJ Kandara branch in Jeddah created 90 projects during December 2011, followed by Najran branch (60), and then the Yanbu and Ahsa branches (50).

During the last month of 2011, the direct employment program created 2,063 jobs, 1,443 of them for men and 620 for women, said Abdullah Al-Zahrani, BRJ general director for the Asir, Jazan and Najran areas.

The program matches jobseekers with jobs available at private sector companies through the BRJ database. BRJ creates direct jobs with these companies. Common jobs created include production workers, salespersons, security guards and female sales representatives.

Companies that cooperated with BRJ during Q3 of 2011 were Al-Hukair, Tadharis Najd Security Services, SAS International, Avon, Al-Hajri and Al-Rajhi Contracting.

The available job opportunities are approved after obtaining an official statement from the employers.

According to Al-Zahrani, BRJ Riyadh branch provided jobs for 340 young men, followed by BRJ Makkah (303 jobs) and BRJ Jeddah (278 jobs). Rola Basamed, BRJ director at Sairafi Mall in Jeddah, announced that her branch created 301 jobs during December for women. The jobs were created in cooperation with companies in the city.

Ali Al-Ghamdi, general director of BRJ in the Riyadh area, announced that the training ending with employment program created 65 jobs during December 2011. In this program, young men and women receive training to sharpen their skills in areas required by the labor market. All training courses organized through this program end with job opportunities with the private sector. Training courses conducted during Q3 2011 included mechanical, electrical and welding, and mechanical engineering programs. Companies that cooperated with the program included Al-Hajri in the Eastern Province and Al Taif Center.

Through the taxi ownership programs, BRJ created 14 job opportunities. In this program young Saudi males own their vehicles after payment of easy installments and then work as taxi drivers.

In addition, 19 young men benefited from the truck ownership program, through which young Saudi males own their trucks to work on transporting goods, vegetables equipment and passengers.

As part of BRJ activities and programs, Nafisa Shams Academy for Arts and Crafts provided training for 232 women trainees in different fields, including secretarial work, tailoring, fashion design, makeup and carpet production.

In addition, jobs have been created for 138 women through the work from home program supervised by the academy. Through this program, beneficiaries produced approximately 6,500 prayer rugs sold to Toyota and Lexus.

Al-Fihaid said the nature of job opportunities differ from that of normal monthly-paid jobs. A job opportunity could be a long-term job, a fixed compensation job, part-time work, a business such as a small project, self employment such as working as a taxi owner, a salesman on commission or any other available job opportunity that could generate a reasonable income for the beneficiary.

“Through BRJ, we are seeking to create job opportunities for Saudis in cooperation with several governmental bodies. We are also seeking to develop our mechanisms and procedures to be more flexible and contribute in creating the maximum number of job opportunities,” Al-Fihaid added.

BRJ has assigned an independent auditor firm to verify results on a quarterly basis.