It was interesting to read in an email supplement to People Management Magazine recently that Saudi Arabia is going to need a further 250,000 HR professionals by 2030.
Before you start packing your case, pause for a moment to consider whether this is at all likely. It is true that the Saudi government has ambitious plans to prepare its economy for the day when oil production will fall. It wants to build up its non-oil service sector and encourage many nationals working in the civil service to move into the private sector. But this will involve, at most ,around 2-2.5 million Saudi nationals. If it took 250,000 HR people to help make this transition it would virtually be a personal service – as the ratio of HR to new employee would be 1:8 to 1:10. Moreover, in the post-oil world the number of foreign workers in the country will almost certainly decline.
The source of the People Management story is claimed to be an organization called Oxford Strategic Consulting. But there is no mention of the projected boom in HR jobs on their website. So where did the People Management get its data – or other predictions that the Kingdom will need to find 1m leaders and 8m talented professionals? I am reminded of the words of Thomas Gradgrind in Dicken’s Hard Times “Now, what I want is Facts. …nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life.”