Help Wanted- Women Need Not Apply

My sister in law, the widow with three children, took on a job a few months back. She worked over the phone selling car insurance and was quite happy with her job and the extra income it brought into the home. Being a widow whose husband worked for the government she receives a 1500 SR pension a month. That is 374 USD and less than the bike that I just had to pay for. 1500 SR is not sufficient enough of an income to live off of, especially if you have three growing children to raise.


Notice I used the past tense to describe her employment status for as of now she doesn't work. She, along with the others in the company, were all fired because the company went under. She was given a couple of weeks notice and that was the end of it. Many women around the world can relate to her story, working one day and given notice the next especially when you consider the economic world crisis. However as a woman in Saudi her work opportunities are extremely limited unlike many companies in the world and this is due to the fact that she is a woman.


The choices of Saudi working woman are typically in the fields of education, the medical field and small business that cater to women only services. The majority of employed Saudi women are teachers and is looked upon as a respectable job. The medical field tends to be filled with obstacles for may women. While secretarial services are considered to be acceptable in most families that agree to allow their women to work being a nurse doesn't always receive the same response.


There are some positions which have recently been adopted in order to further the employment of Saudi women. Marketing and sales representatives have been increasingly opportunities for Saudi women. These women tend to sit in an office for women only and make telephone calls to market various companies products or sell specific products. Some women working in such positions tend to complain of sexual harassment while others have claimed that sexual innuendos have been used by the women and companies in order to sell products. Many times women will call numbers late in the night, speaking in a 'sexy' tone trying to get the men to buy a product. However several men question what they are selling and this is the exact reaction that some companies tend to want display. I'm not sure how this helps their sales, but it is something which will hinder Saudi women's drive for more employment.


Saudi women, not unlike other women around the globe at some point, have to fight for their position in the workforce which is free of sexual exploitation of any kind. Saudi women in the workplace find that many times when they are sexually harassed there are no real procedures set in place for her to complain and find justice against the offender. Often times she finds it more easier to quit her job or accept that she is being fired because she doesn't give in to the propositions from men on her job. There is talk of addressing this problem legally which is a step in the right direction. However one has to wonder if it will be enforced or will the complaints of women be ignored by judges and others in charge.

There are also groups of women who do not want regulations in place to help women who have been sexually harassed. According to this group of women if a law was enacted to protect these women than it would along encourage free mixing of the sexes. This they feel is a step in the wrong direction and believe that women should remain separate in the workforce in order to preserve the woman's position as they perceive due to religious and cultural influences.

But how does this really affect Saudi society as a whole?

The unemployment rate among Saudi men of working age is said to be about 9.8 % and for women it is 24.9%. According to statistics only 5% of the working women in Saudi are in the private sector. Maybe not so bad but consider this foreigners make up for 60% of the workforce in Saudi. Some may say well these are low skilled laborers so what difference does it really make. Considering that 30 billion Riyals was sent out of the country by these 14.5 expatriate workers one can easily see how this affects the economy. Add in some other numbers like the average family household is 5.2 members and the average family income is about 48000 USD a year. Another figure 65% of Saudis are renters, they don't even own their own homes.

Let us consider the plight of working women in Saudi Arabia. According to figures half of the Saudi population is women. From this 5 million are of working age but only 500,000 actually work. That means that 4.5 million are not working. Of the 17% of women that make up the workforce in this country only 53% of them are Saudis. This even thought 65% of university students in Saudi Arabia are women.

If you take a quick walk in any market, mall, retail outlet or even ponder these figures and facts over a cup of coffee or lunch with a friend you start to wonder why aren't more women working? There is a desire for women to work, many need the income, yet Saudi continues to hire foreign workers who send billions out of their economy each year. Ignoring the fact that it is women of their own country who have money to put back in their own economy. Saudi really needs to employ more women but there are unfortunately many obstacles.

One major obstacle on women working is the idea that women must be in a non mixed environment and segregated in the work force. This is not ideal under any situation as women will need to interact with male colleagues in their working environment. Currently there is no law that restricts working women to a segregated work place. The idea that women must be segregated when working is one which I can't honestly wrap my mind around.

Consider this, I walk into any store at a mall as a woman and I'm greeted by a man. We are not segregated, he works there and I'm making a purchase. I ask him questions, he answers, I pay he gives me change, my receipt or anything else I need. I do this in every store, be it a cosmetic shop, woman's clothing store, woman's shoe store or a lingerie shop (which I don't go to in Saudi because they men freak me out). What is the difference exactly if the situation were reverse? What prevents me as a woman working the counter, answering the questions of a customer, giving him change or doing anything else as a retail worker?

Why can I sit a restaurant and give a man my order and wait for him to come and bring my lunch? Even though I'm sitting in the family section. Why can I go to a super market and have a man stock shelves, weigh my vegetables, or check me out? Why when I get a new abaya a man is there to measure me, recommend decorations and sew it together? When I go to a fabric shop why is it men, usually foreign Arab men, that are there to lay out the fabric and cut my yardage?

Why, in a public place making public exchanges are women not working yet are permitted to be a customer? One may try to argue that it is the veil that hinders the. Either those who say a woman can't do the job with a veil or that she would have to take it off are completely wrong in my view.

If a woman can choose a pair of shoes, take them out of the box, put them on her feet, decide if she wants them, brings them to the counter for check out, count out her money or use her debit or credit card than proceed to walk out of the door with her purchase while veiled. I say she can wait on a customer, get the box of shoes, press a few buttons on a cash register and put the sale in the bag like any other. She will also be able to interact with her female customer much easier, even help putting the shoes on like real service, and suggest the right heel or color in a crisis situation.

If a woman can bag her own carrots and bring them to the counter to have them weighed and tagged, shop the isles, reach on the top shelf for cereal or that last box of cookies put her purchases on the cashiers belt and than pay in whatever means she chooses. I dare say she can do the same as one on the other end giving the service rather than just being the customer.

I see no difference in such work in the public view than that of a receptionist at a local hospital who may take appointments, process paper work, answer phones, make copies of insurance cards, take payment for services and everything else that goes into working for a veiled woman. And this is not to agree that all women veil in Saudi for they don't. But even if they do it isn't necessarily a hindrance to them in the work force especially in the retail or service market.

A company may argue that there is too much money to be spent on training and preparing women for such work. As a girl of 16 who was easily trained as a cashier I so bologna to that. It would take less money and time to train a Saudi woman to work in the retail sector than it does to import a worker from another country. I'm sure that many of these educated women who make up 65% of the graduates can actually handle stocking a new product line in a retail store or being taught to use a register.

Why would I even focus on such jobs as many times their pay isn't that great? Well for one pay for women overall in Saudi Arabia is on the lower scale as it is. My sister in law made 2,500 SR a month for her work in sales. The average salary isn't that much higher for many women in Saudi unless the have a government teaching job although this sector is over flooded with applicants as it is. But I would suggest such jobs for various reasons.

1. They are plentiful
2. No experience is really necessary
3. Easy to move up in positions
4. Visible- more women seen working it becomes a more acceptable idea
5. Attractive to the younger workers as well as high school educated older workers 6. Teaches women about business in general and will serve better for more small business owners that are women in the future.

Shutting women away from the public eye or trying to enforce ridiculous standards on companies trying to employ women I believe will only hinder their growth in the Saudi work force. Public working options may also enable women to be in a more powerful position. In a private office where a woman is sexually harassed by a higher ranking employee (or employer) she tends to lack options. If however a woman is sexually harassed by a customer in a clothing store she can quickly call security and have him put out if not arrested thus putting women in the role of power rather than leaving them powerless.

This is one of many easy employment options, for women anywhere else in the world that is. Unfortunately Saudi as a society and a government have failed to tap a real market in women. Their policies on employing women leave billions of riyals leaving their economy each year rather than having it put back in by it's own citizens. And women, like my sister in law, continue to struggle raising a family of four on 1500 SR (400 USD) a month with little options to independently improve the economic fate of her family.