Cabinet Resolution No. (660), dated 24/10/1441 AH was issued to approve the Saudi Standard Classification of Occupations and to be applied by ministries and government agencies in their internal systems within twelve months of its date. The Saudi Standard Classification of Occupations is based on the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO_08) issued by The United Nations Economic and Social Council, which provides a system for classifying and collecting the occupation’s information that are collected from the statistical censuses, surveys and the administrative records. It is a five-level classification that uses a hierarchical structure for the occupations divided into major group, sub-major group, minor groups, , unit group, as well as the occupation’s code , title and description. It is a system that collects and classifies the names of occupations in a hierarchical structure and according to the similarities to provide a common understanding related to the occupational structures of the workforce

The Saudi Standard Classifications of Occupations has a number of objectives, most importantly:

1. Unify the use of the Saudi Standard Classification of Occupations in all private and government entities and reach to a common understanding in which standards and concepts can be built.
2. Provide a unified reference to code and classify the occupations locally, regionally, and internationally.
3. Provide a common understanding to define the occupations, identify expected tasks as well as major qualifications and skills for each occupation. Also, unify the ways of reading and presenting the data.
4. Provide the possibility of local, regional and international comparisons of data.
5. Facilitate data flow and exchange between different local institutions and authorities.
6. Provide the main information and infrastructure for data collection and analysis that are related to the labor market.
7. To ease the process of unifying socio-economic indicators and concepts related to the classification.
8. Standardize the occupations' titles, codes, and descriptions to improve the work environment and increase the efficiency of government support for professions in the Kingdom.
9. List all professions in the Saudi labor market and facilitate processing of its data.
10. Prepare a future update mechanism.

The importance of the Saudi Standard Classification of Occupations lies in the following points:

1. In standardizing the occupations' titles, codes, and descriptions to improve the work environment and increase the efficiency of government support for professions in the Kingdom.
2. Organizing the occupations in major group, sub-major group, minor group, and unit group to facilitate its use for data collection and publishing;
3. Identifying the fastest growing occupations in the Kingdom;
4. A major supporter to the electronic linkage project between various entities, to boost the work of the e-government;
5. Standardize the occupations' titles in the government and private sectors;
6. Enhance the possibility of relying on the data of the administrative records in labor market statistics and other statistics;
7. List the occupations in the Kingdom and compare them with other occupations regionally and internationally

According to (ISCO-08) job is defined as (set of tasks and duties performed or meant to be performed by one person for a particular employer, including self-employment). People can have more than one job at the same time. On the other hand, occupation is defined as( a set of jobs whose main tasks and duties are characterized by a high degree of similarity.) A person may enter a profession through the main position he is currently occupying, or through a second job, or through a position he previously held. Occupations are concerned with the type of work that a person does regardless of the place of (the activity / industry), or in which state of employment the work is performed