A number of private schools started hiring Saudi women teachers at the beginning of the second semester of this academic year as expat teachers failed to transfer their sponsorship to their employers in the first semester.

The director of a Saudi private school told Arab News: “A number of our expat staff refused to transfer their sponsorship from their husbands or fathers to their employers in the first semester. So we resorted to hiring Saudi teachers for the second semester of this academic year.”

However, many private and public schools cannot accommodate the large number of Saudi women wishing to be hired as teachers. According to Ibrahim Al-Muaiqel, general director of the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF), over 76 percent of Saudi women are looking for teaching jobs.

The Ministry of Education had earlier announced that priority must be given to Saudis for teaching positions in compliance with the laws stipulated by the Ministry of Labor.

Al-Muaiqel said: “Many Saudi women prefer to work as teachers rather than in private companies even though the public education sector does not pay much.”

“It is hard to let go of expat teachers who did not transfer their sponsorship in the middle of the academic year. But we are replacing expats with Saudis gradually to avoid confusing the education program of our students, especially as many Saudi women prefer to work in the public sector,” Najat Ali, a Saudi woman working as the human resource supervisor in a private school in Jeddah, told Arab News.

“I am receiving a lot of Saudi women who want to take up teaching positions but the problem is we are in the middle of the school year. We have also legalized our expat staff. However, we have also hired a number of qualified Saudi teachers in the second semester,” Hoda Assem, a Saudi woman who manages a private school in Jeddah told Arab News.

“The main reason for Saudi women’s unemployment is that a large number want to work as teachers. Very few want to work in specializations related to the business sector,” she added.

“I prefer to work as a teacher because the working hours are comfortable and I can fulfill my family commitments as well. Private companies, on the other hand, do not provide an appropriate working environment. Moreover, my family won’t allow me to work there,” said Ola Adnan, a Saudi woman who works as a secretary in a private school.

Unemployment among Saudi women in the private sector increased by 2.3 percent in 2012, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Labor. In 2011, there were around 302,000 unemployed Saudi women. The number surged to 358,000 in 2012, marking a considerable increase, sources told a local daily.

An official source at the Ministry of Labor said previously the number of Saudis employed in the private sector exceeded 1 million in 2012, while the overall unemployment rate dropped by 0.3 percent during the same period.

The source also confirmed that the number of workers in the private sector reached 8.5 million, of which 1.1 million are Saudi nationals. The unemployment rates stood at 12.4 percent in 2011 and decreased to 12.1 percent in 2012. The unemployment rate for males stood at 6.1 percent in 2012, while dramatically increasing to 35.7 percent among females.