RIYADH, 18 June — Recently, I went out with a friend for a bite at a fast food outlet at the upscale Sahara Mall on Prince Abdullah Street here. We were accosted at the entrance by the security personnel. “No men allowed here. This shopping area is only for families.”
In spite of my remonstration that I was going there by invitation, the watchmen would not budge. We had to depart from the place with our ego bruised.
Now comes another regulation. Saudi males under 18 will be barred entry to coffeehouses as part of the official crackdown on smoking and other immoral activities that are believed to be taking place there.
What is the impact of these restrictions? In the first case, the fast food outlet has already pulled out of the Sahara Mall, since the “families only” rule operated as a tight sieve even against educated and responsible people just wanting to enjoy an outdoor meal for a change. Its pullout from an otherwise busy shopping complex means a loss of business for the Saudi owner of the outlet. As for the restricted entry into coffeehouses, the Saudi owners are already feeling the pinch. A young businessman, who runs a coffee shop at the junction between King Fahd Road and Olaya Street, told this reporter that the new rule had a negative impact on his business, since a majority of his customers were young Saudis.
There was a time when the coffeehouse used to be jammed with Saudi youths watching soccer matches on a giant screen over a cup of coffee. Today it wears a deserted look. With its business drying up under the welter of restrictions, the once prosperous coffeehouse faces a bleak future.
The government, of course, is committed to Saudization, which it is seeking to promote through job-oriented training programs and close coordination with the private sector. Yet the overriding concern for preserving traditional values has deterred even those who swear by those values. The victim of these restrictions is the Saudi himself, for whose sake in theory the regulations are being turned on their heads.
And there are other problems.
According to Nada Fayez, a member of the Saudi Economic Society, restrictions on obtaining the ID card impinge on women’s ambitions both in the education and employment sectors. “It is easier for Saudi boys to get an ID card than it is for girls. Boys can acquire one without their father’s approval, but for girls approval of the father or husband is a must if she is applying for admission to a college,” she said.
As a result, they find themselves in a difficult situation. While the government agencies, notably the ministries, have no women’s branches for absorbing the growing number of female graduates, the doors of the private sector are shut as the girls generally lack computer skills and English-language proficiency.
Since the private sector remains the engine of growth of the Saudi economy, Nada believes these shortcomings in women’s education should be rectified. And ministries should set up women’s cells to provide them with job opportunities.
She said the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) has also remained indifferent to Saudi women aspiring for a business career. “We made a representation to Abdulrahman Al-Jeraisy, president of RCCI, on the need for a women’s branch of the Riyadh chamber. No response has been received so far even though the representation was submitted last year.”
Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Otaishan, chairman of the Otaishan Group, has said that the Saudi government, by not recognizing the importance of project management in the construction sector, has failed to mobilize the full potential of a government contract in terms of providing job opportunities for Saudis. He said that instead of awarding large segments of a project to a general contractor, it should be parceled out to several sub-contracts in the larger interest of the private sector. This would create job opportunities for Saudis who could go into the sub-contracting business.
The winds of change are now blowing. A training institute of Al-Hasa in the Eastern Province has become the first IT training institute in the Kingdom to produce students who are following a University of Cambridge IT skills training program.
According to Geoff Smith, country examinations manager for the British Council here, Dar El-Khibra Institute of Al-Hasa has based its program on the Career and Skills Awards developed by the University of Cambridge and administered locally by the British Council.
The Career and Skills Awards was introduced by Cambridge two years ago for the benefit of various Saudi institutions. “The schemes are specifically targeted at the employment sector and are designed to prepare people for the workplace. A variety of skills are covered, including IT, office administration, business and project management.”
The scheme is intended to prepare young Saudis for employment in the private sector, which is required to increase its Saudi workforce at the rate of five percent every year. The goal as defined by the current Five-Year Plan (2000-2005) is to provide 817,000 jobs for Saudis by creating new job opportunities or replacing expatriates with citizens in jobs for which qualified Saudi manpower is available.
Currently, the level of unemployment stands at 14 percent of the population. But the problem is compounded by the fact that as against some 30,000 new jobs created for the Saudis annually, about 100,000 young nationals enter the labor market. Equipping young Saudis with IT skills could help solve part of the problem.
The RCCI, in collaboration with the General Organization for Technical and Vocational Training (GOTEVOT) and the Human Resources Development Fund, is also grooming young Saudis for a career in three professions as part of the government’s drive to replace expatriates holding those jobs in the private sector.
A total of 150 Saudis from different educational background signed contracts with private sector organizations at the RCCI recently as part of their intensive training program for three categories of jobs — executive secretary, auto mechanic and salesman — under the Saudization program.
“This is just the beginning. We hope more programs will be organized in future depending on the success of this experiment,” Mohammed Abdullah Al-Swailem, manager of the vocational training center at RCCI, told Arab News. He added that RCCI has already started collecting data from the private sector for identifying more job opportunities for Saudis.
He said the training scheme is open to Saudis who have either secondary or further education qualifications. The trainees were selected out of 860 candidates who had applied for the apprenticeship scheme. Of these, 500 candidates were short-listed for intensive hands-on experience after they were evaluated and tested by GOTEVOT.
Some 40 organizations from the private sector will provide training facilities to 150 candidates with a view to providing future employment in their organizations,” the RCCI official said, adding that the training program for salesman is for one year and for executive secretary as well as auto mechanic 18 months each.
Al-Swailem said the short-listing of candidates was done by GOTEVOT on the basis of their educational qualifications and professional aptitude. Once the evaluation was through, GOTEVOT contacted private-sector organizations willing to cooperate in the scheme. It also evaluated the facilities of the prospective employer as well as availability of trainers for the scheme. During training, each candidate will be paid SR1,000, of which Manpower Development Fund will contribute SR750, while the employer will pitch in with the remaining amount. He said that once the trainee is absorbed in the respective organization, the fund will pay 50 percent of the employee’s salary for the first year only.
Despite these incentives and government pressure on the private sector to beef up their Saudi manpower by five percent every year, the results are so far not encouraging. First, the Saudi workforce is highly mobile, as they can hop from place to place without any hurdles. Secondly, Saudis have gained a reputation — sometimes warranted — that they do not have strong work ethics. So even if their salary gets a boost from the manpower fund, the private sector may still may not be getting everything they need from them.
These challenges will have to be addressed if Saudization is to home in on the target set by the Five-Year Plans.
