Saudi Arabia's IT employment sector grows at 4 percent per annum offering major opportunities to professionals

This growth translates into opportunities offered by 7,200 to 8,800 new jobs created every year in the local IT market, which is a strong indicator of the rapid advances in this sector that is driven by growing interest in and need for technology in the kingdom.

Commenting on the recent figures released by Madar Research, Dirk de Waegeneire, Vice President of International Sales, Fujitsu-Siemens Computers, the fastest growing IT vendor in the region, said "The surge in demand for IT jobs reaffirms the assertion that Saudi Arabia is one of the most productive markets in the Middle East region. The focus on IT and the employment of key qualified personnel in this sector will necessitate the introduction and implementation of new products and solutions by large corporations as well as small and medium enterprises (SME). Fujitsu-Siemens Computers has selected Saudi Arabia as one of our key growth areas for 2003."

Saudi Arabia's information technology sector is one of the largest and fastest growing in the Middle East. The country has made major investments in recent years towards developing a modern IT and telecommunications infrastructure capable of supporting e-Commerce and the demands of a growing information conscious society within the kingdom.

According to recent figures released by Madar Research, the size of the IT workforce employed in both public and private sectors is now estimated at between 180,000 and 220,000. This is approximately 3 per cent of the total workforce, and is the second single largest IT community in the Arab World after Egypt. However, it is significantly lower than the 4.5 per cent figure in the United Arab Emirates.

The distribution of IT jobs in Saudi Arabia is among international companies, local firms, oil and gas companies and government entities. According to Madar Research, programming and software engineering has the largest share of demand for IT professionals at 21.50 per cent; followed by network design and administration with 19.16 per cent and database development and administration with 16.82 per cent.

"FSC has already created a multi-front strategy for the kingdom, which is driven by our dual focus on mobility and business critical computing. As the IT sector in Saudi Arabia continues to flourish, FSC's servers, storage solutions and business critical computing products will help businesses create value in an increasingly challenging and competitive economic environment. Our strategy includes additional focus on qualified personnel and extensive training programmes for FSC systems and solutions within Saudi Arabia. This would be extremely beneficial to the growing workforce within Saudi Arabia's IT industry," de Waegeneire added.