JEDDAH, 18 April 2005 — According to the latest reports from the Ministry of Civil Services, there are 70,500 female applications for jobs in the education sector while the total job openings available in the sector are only 7,710. Which means that 89 percent of those women applying for education jobs will be unemployed. Although the trend has been to rely on the private sector to absorb unemployed Saudis, whether men or women, and thus reduce dependence on foreign labor, women have been facing obstacles in this regard because of lack of appropriate training, lack of information on the jobs available for women, the limited opportunities available for them and the lack of qualified women for the job market, according to a recent study. In addition, the study also points to the low salaries and the low level jobs offered to women.
The Human Resource Council statistics indicate that women’s participation in the private sector is 2.02 percent. Despite the increase in the number of female university graduates there has not been an equal increase in women’s employment. It is estimated that there are twice as many unemployed women as there are men. Women working in the public sector account for 30 percent of the labor force, according to statistics, with 84 percent of them in education.
A study by the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Saudization and job opportunities found that women’s participation in the job market continues to be low — between 5.1 percent and 5.8 percent — and that is because their qualifications are inconsistent with the job market requirements and because of social restrictions. For women seeking to enter or already managing their own businesses, they face another list of obstacles ranging from legal hurdles to social attitudes. However, the study suggested some business sectors that are appropriate for women either as employees or investors with great potential such as the food industry from restaurants to production companies, office services, clothing industry, IT, jewelry and gold businesses, and the media. But the most important recommendation is to ease the restrictions, provide information and access, and restructure the private sector to accommodate women.
Saudi women also face another form of problem in working in the private sector and that is competition from expatriate women who might have the qualifications, do not mind the low salary, and have no social objections to working in the private sector. This again puts the emphasis on the need to reform the education system and provide better training for women.
The need to employ women is not a fashionable request by women seeking a bigger role in the economy anymore, but rather an economic necessity.
According to a report by the World Bank to be released soon on “Gender issues in GCC countries’, by not capitalizing on their investment in female education, the region is missing the contribution of a talented female population with significant potential to be not only productive workers, but also entrepreneurs who can generate wealth and create employment in their own right. The report points to a paradox in women’s situation in the GCC in that observations around the world show that female education is closely linked to fertility and female labor force participation leads to lower fertility rates and higher job participation.
However, this relationship is not similarly exhibited in the GCC (only Bahrain and Oman have similar fertility rates as upper-middle-income average countries). Female development indicators (education and life expectancy) in the GCC equal the average for women in upper-middle-income-countries, yet, in spite of these achievements they do not exhibit a similar decrease in average total fertility rates or an equivalent increase in their labor force participation rates. The report shows that low levels of female participation lead to low utilization of productive capacity.
“The most obvious consequence of women’s low labor force participation is the large number of non-working people that the working population supports, referred to as the economic dependency ratio,” according to the report. In the GCC, where foreign workers constitute a significant portion of the labor force, the economic dependency ratio due to low female labor participation may reach even higher levels, once the ratio of foreign labor is factored out of the calculations. With high living expenses, this dependency puts pressure on the sole breadwinner in the house, the man, to make ends meet.
The World Bank MENA regional gender report also shows that family income could be higher, if women were to fully use their productive capabilities in line with their current demographic characteristics. Another study analyzed the determinants of GDP per capita growth. These estimates, based on regression analyses conducted by the World Bank for seven countries in the MENA region for which data are available show that, had women participated in the labor force according to their potential, per capita GDP (as a simple average of the set of countries) could have been higher in the region by 0.7 percent per annum in the 1990s (a growth rate of 2.6 percent instead of 1.9 percent).