JEDDAH: Cell phone shops will be required to have private and separate locations for female employees in order to ensure their safety and privacy, said Ministry of Labor Spokesman Khaled Aba Al-Kheil.

Al-Kheil said female employees will participate in the same training courses as their male counterparts in the field of marketing and maintenance, while those wishing to invest will receive financial support.

The Ministry of Labor recently issued a decision to nationalize all cellphone shops in the Kingdom as part of the plan to secure 1.5 million jobs for Saudi men and women by 2020.

Inspectors from the Ministries of Labor, Commerce and Industry, Telecommunications, Municipal and Rural Affairs will be conducting inspection checks of all cellphone shops in the Kingdom after three months to ensure shops are 50 percent nationalized by the three-month deadline, and 100 percent nationalized within six months.

The first phase of the free training program, carried out by the General Authority for Technical and Vocational Training with support from the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF), started on Sunday. Training focuses on enhancing the skills of Saudi cadres in mobile phone maintenance and other related fields, with training offered to 20,000 Saudi men and women.

The authority said trainees accepted to the program in Riyadh, Makkah, Madinah, the Eastern Province, Asir, Qassim and Jazan will be able to attend training courses at university locations and institutes of their choice, noting that each training group will have no more than 22 trainees.

The authority said it equipped training centers and trainers, and large companies specialized in the field of cellphone production and maintenance will participate in the delivery of the training.

The authority is expected to expand all free training programs on basic cellphone maintenance, sales, customer service and advanced maintenance in other locations throughout the Kingdom within a week of the launch of the first phase; such trainings will be offered at around 100 training locations.