682,000 unemployed women refuse Hafiz jobs

More than 682,000 females refused to join jobs in the private sector offered by Hafiz. Of this number, 417,000 said they wanted to work in education and 265,000 preferred to work in the government sector, recent statistics reveal.
The number of women who worked in employment programs reached 545,000 at the end of 2013, which is double the number of those who worked in the private sector.
The report showed that 49 percent of jobseekers or 534,000 were between 18 and 20 years of age; those with a university degree reached 232,000; 21 percent of unemployed women had a secondary school certificate; 14 percent had an intermediate qualification and 16 percent had a primary school qualification.
Data of the Central Department of Statistics and Information said unemployment rates among women between 2009 and 2013 increased from 28.4 percent to 34.8 percent, and the number of women working in the private sector was 50,000 before the initiatives of the Ministry of Labor which pushed this figure to reach 55,600 in 2010 and 99, 4000 in 2011; figures rose to a further 215,000 in 2012 and 410,000 in 2013.
The report stated that there are more than 20 programs related to women’s work in various sectors, such as education, lingerie, factories and female work development.
The report also said that the Sanid program aims to strengthen job security for private sector employees and find job opportunities for Saudi females in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor and the Human Resource Development Fund.