Fahad Al-Tukhaifi, the undersecretary general for special programs within the Ministry of Labor, has announced that nine new decisions will come into effect in early 2015 to bolster female employment in the private sector.

“The decision mostly relate to the regulation of the workplace environment in order to make it more suitable for women to be present at shops and stalls inside closed commercial centers. Such decisions are expected to commence next month,” he said.

Addressing the Jeddah Forum for Human Resources of 2014 through a paper entitled “General visions and trends on female employment and the most important results of the past three years,” Al-Tukhaifi confirmed that the ministry is seeking to put in place controls and regulations to establish an attractive work environment for women in the private sector, and to establish legal frameworks to protect and support women in the workplace in general.

Al-Tukhaifi gave a briefing on the decisions and regulations to be issued within the forthcoming six months, saying: “One of these important decisions is to regulate remote work by strengthening mechanisms for training and employment, and adding a special chapter on work behavior and ethics, and the penalties in relation to this in order to better support women.”

Areas of work that the decisions will particularly affect include female employment at gold and food-stuff shops, and open commercial centers (popular markets). Additionally, the ministry will design programs to support the transportation of females to work, and to organize necessary childcare facilities that may enable women to have more time to work.

In his paper, Al-Tukhaifi shed light on the challenges facing the ministry in implementing female employment programs, including the high level of female unemployment, their poor participation in the private sector, the work environment and its requirements.