Long working hours, evening shifts, lack of transportation and low salaries are all but discouraging the Saudi women in taking up jobs making it difficult for the Saudi policy of feminizing employment in certain sectors of business.
It becomes all the more demanding if the working women are married and there is no availability of baby sitters to take care of their children back home.
According to a report, store owners complained of the short training period, which is adding to huge economic losses in their busniesses.
Referring to the Labor Ministry’s strict implementation of feminization program, some businessmen said it has not taken into account the emerging issues resulting from the rapid replacement of the existing workers with women, including lack of suitable infrastructure for female working in the shops.
Women’s participation in the local market is driven by the government’s policy on nationalization and which is supported by the Labor Ministry, the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and other bodies.
The report indicates that the feminization of shops is a very important issue which has a direct impact on Saudi society with far reaching consequences. While pointing out the positive effects of this decision, the report urged the need to evaluate it on the economic, social, cultural and political levels.
The project will have an important effect on the minimum wage which will increase and affect the prices of goods.
Companies’ returns will be affected because the volume of production is related to the number of working hours while companies will be affected because of the inexperience of the workers and the need to conduct continuous training for their staff which will need heavy investments and in turn, result in huge losses to the companies.
On the social level, there will be a new paradigm shift as women enter unconventional work environments besides education and health. It is noteworthy that the feminization project is taking women into an open work environment devoid of privacy.
On the cultural level, a number of factors should be taken into consideration such as the impact of feminization on the work culture and its effects on the consumer culture in addition to the future movement toward academic specializations in female work in the Kingdom, the report said.
Source: Arab News
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