RIYADH, 28 March 2006 — Minister of Labor Ghazi Al-Gosaibi on Sunday firmly backed the Council of Ministers’ decision to replace salesmen with saleswomen in the retail of lingerie.
“The directive is binding and there will be no retraction in its implementation,” Al-Gosaibi said, adding that the decision was made based on what is best for the public interest. “Providing jobs for women has been a priority for decision makers in the Kingdom for more than 25 years,” he told reporters during his visit to the technical college along with Britain’s Prince Charles.
The labor minister denied that there were as many as two million Saudi men working as salesmen in female-clothing shops.
“This figure is baseless. If there were two million Saudis working as salesmen in (shops selling products for women) we would not require five million foreigners who come from abroad to work as salesmen,” he said.
Al-Gosaibi also reassured Saudi salesmen already working female-clothing stores that they would not lose their jobs due to the implementation of the directive. He said that even if it were proven that the directive adversely affected a Saudi salesman, another job would be found for him.
Al-Gosaibi did not address this issue in relation to how it might affect expatriate sales clerks. He did emphasize the need to open the job market to Saudi women.
“There are large numbers of women who are in desperate need of jobs within the appropriate environment, which we seek to provide following Shariah regulations,” he said.
Regarding merchants being hesitant to implement the Cabinet directive due to a lack of clear guidelines, Al-Gosaibi said certain regulations must be followed.
“We are not talking about the creation of an atomic bomb. We are talking about providing the proper environment for women to work in accordance with certain regulations, such as them not mixing with men,” he said.
The minister said that training Saudi women to be saleswomen was not a difficult task and did not need more than two to three weeks of training.
“Are we saying that the salesmen we have now selling women’s clothing are graduates of Harvard?” he said.
Al-Gosaibi said that the implementation of this regulation would not only provide jobs for women who are in dire need of them, but also lessen the country’s dependency on foreign labor.
