I ALWAYS GET questioned why I started Glowork.net and why did I invest my time and money in an initiative aimed at creating jobs for women in Saudi Arabia. There are many reasons for starting such a movement, but nothing more could clarify my reasons than my own personal story. My sister had graduated from a reputable university and I knew she was going to have a hard time finding a job, as I did five years earlier. From the moment she came back to Riyadh, I told her that I would help her find an opportunity through my personal connections. She rejected my offer saying, “I have a great degree from a great university, I should find my own job by myself.”
She spent seven months trying to get an interview but was unsuccessful. Her limitations such as being deprived from driving, as well as faced with the segregation law that didn’t allow her to freely enter several companies and forced her to drop her CV with security personal or reception counters — this led her nowhere. So she decided to apply for a master’s program and hoped that by the time she got her degree things would have changed for the better. Her experience brought me back to my job search at the beginning of my career that got me thinking and asking myself questions. The most important question was, if it is this hard for a man in Saudi Arabia, how much harder must it be for a woman?
I started my career at a consulting firm that gave me the skills to do appropriate research to understand the complexity of this problem. I found a study conducted by Booz and Co. in 2007 that said only 15 percent of the labor force were women.
This was a shocking number to me and I decided to do my own research, where a focus group was conducted with several HR heads and CEO’s and the question to them was why aren’t you hiring women? Is it because of cultural issues? Is it a lack of belief in their capabilities? The answer shocked me. The majority of those present at that focus group told me the only reason they are holding back on women employment is because they did not know how to reach them.
Thus I saw the gap between our labor market and the education sector and started looking at innovative ways in closing that gap and hence Glowork.net was created purely for women to search and apply for jobs from the comfort of their own homes. When setting up I knew the challenge at hand was not easy. Creating jobs, changing cultural norms and providing the necessities required before entering the workforce was all on the agenda and we took things step by step. In the first couple of months over 1500 vacancies were created for women in several sectors and all posted on our website, but at the same time we took on the challenge of recruiting women in supermarkets and we faced several consequences for our actions.
Changing culture perceptions of women working was a stumbling block, however our marketing capabilities were tailored not to women but to men. We identified another issue in our society where only 20 percent of Saudis own their own homes, and this is mainly due to limited income and high dependency on male family members.
Once families started seeing the extra income generated by their female counterparts, no matter how meagre it may be, it helps support families and increases their buying power.
The Minister of Labour, Adel Fakieh, came up with a good strategy and vision for women in the workforce and we quickly aligned our goals with what the Kingdom had in store. The job seeker allowance “Hafiz” has been a great key in identifying the problem we have at hand. Over 1.2 million jobseekers are women and are between the ages of 20-35. That consists of 86 percent of total job seekers in the Hafiz database. Another important statistic is that females in the private sector are only 1.6 percent of the total workforce.
Therefore, jobs need to be created in new sectors, new industries. Glowork is one of several innovative companies that are trying to shape the labor market and give women opportunities that are rightfully theirs.
We looked at manufacturing, tourism and diplomatic missions as new sectors that were previously occupied by expatriates but now Saudi women are taking over. A mix of new laws, legislations and great enthusiasm by Glowork led to the creation of over 6,000 vacancies at entry-level positions and leadership roles.
However, there is a need for many more companies such as Glowork to solve employment issues for women in the Saudi job market and such companies are starting to develop. For example, the Cella network started by young Saudi women is a great example of providing all the right tools needed for the labor market.
So to answer the initial question in a nutshell, some would call this Saudi women empowerment, when in reality it is pure human rights and our women deserve it.
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