Saudi contracting entities rise to 175,500, workers at 2.8 mln in 2020

The number of entities in the contracting sector rose 5.7% to 175,500 in 2020 from 166,000 in 2019, the Saudi Contractors Authority (SCA) said in its 2020 annual statistical report.

Micro-enterprises topped the sector with 123,400 entities, representing 70% of the total establishments, followed by small enterprises with 45,700 entities, equivalent to 26% of the total.

SCA indicated that Saudi Arabia is the largest construction market in the GCC, with more than 33% of the total market share, valued at more than $850 billion.

The contracting sector is the second largest non-oil sector in the Kingdom, with the operating entities estimated at 6.2% of the total facilities and 34% of the total employees, by the end of Q4 2020.

With regard to the types of sectors, building construction activity topped the list, with the number of entities reaching 99,800 (56.9% of the total). It was followed by specialized construction activities, with 48,300 entities (27.5% of the total), and the activities of providing services for buildings and beautifying their sites with 25,800 entities (14.7% of the total).

Riyadh accounted for 26.4% of the total contracting sector entities in Saudi Arabia, followed by Makkah with 21.6%, and the Eastern Province with 14.5%.

The following is the distribution of the contracting sector entities by region:

Saudis own 99.4% of the total entities across the Kingdom, at 174,500 establishments, while non-Saudis own only 981 entities. Mixed entities amounted to 19.

The number of workers in the contracting sector facilities declined 7% to 2.8 million in 2020 from 3.1 million in 2019.

Large enterprises hired 1.3 million workers in the sector (46% of the total). It was followed by small enterprises with about 677,600 workers (24% of the total).

The following table shows workers in the contracting sector by size of the enterprise:

Bangladeshi workers topped the sector, totaling 534,300, followed by Indian workers with 527,000.

Saudi workers in the sector amounted to 486,900, while Pakistani workers reached 446,500.

The following table shows the number of workers in the contracting sector by nationality:

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