JEDDAH: The Labor Ministry has not allowed non-Saudi sons of Saudi women to work in sales and maintenance jobs in cell phone stores. The ministry has ordered that these jobs be reserved strictly for male and female Saudis.

Over the last three days the ministry received several calls from the children of Saudi women married to foreigners. They wanted to know whether they can be listed on the Nitaqat nationalization program as Saudis. The ministry officials replied that these jobs are not for them.

The decision was made after the ministry had previously stated, according to a local publication, concerning the lack of separation which the private expat enjoys from the “son, daughter, husband and wife” of nationals away from positions that are restricted to Saudis — and are counted for Nitaqat points for the companies as part of their Saudization.

On the existence of regulations, legal expert Tareq Al-Ibrahim said that the labor law calculated sections of the sons, daughters and wives of nationals within the localization program in private sector jobs which allows Saudization of mobile shops open to these sectors in accordance with the labor law.

As for jobs limited to Saudis, he said: “Pertaining to the question of earmarking these jobs goes back to officials in the Labor Ministry which they decided based on available data because the ministry has information on vacant jobs that could be held by Saudis.”

Nineteen professions have been nationalized and are meant only for Saudis, and Saudis are working in those jobs. The ministry had the right to earmark other professions for Saudis only and use that for the calculation of Nitaqat points.

The Labor Ministry announced recently about the Saudization of the mobile sector in cooperation with other government parties represented in the ministries of municipal and rural affairs and commerce and industry, Communications and Information Technology Commission, Human Resources Development Fund and Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC), coupled with the participation of a number of private sector firms.