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| Arabia |
| Saudi women to get employment |
| 2005-01-30 |
| The Saudi Labor Ministry plans to secure jobs for 200,000 Saudi women within the next six months as part of a national drive to replace foreigners with locals. A ministry source said Tuesday that certain jobs allocated for women would be "Saudized," or taken over by Saudi nationals, including receptionists in female outlets, workers in female workshops and ateliers, diet centers, nurseries, secretarial jobs and estheticians. "The Saudization of these jobs will take place in phases after the candidates submit to training sessions financed and organized by the Fund for the Development of Human Resources," the source said. He said some 200,000 women are expected to benefit from that process. Saudi women, who have long been banned from employment under the strict rules of the Muslim conservative kingdom, can now apply for certain jobs allocated for them. Because, Allah knows, anything more challenging would give them the vapours, and the poor dears just can't be expected to do "man's work". |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #2 This has the feel of the Saudis gingerly backing into the thorny problem of male Arab ego vs. need for employment. I.e., first have women work - because they are after all inferior to begin with, so there is no dishonor in them working at the right sort of girly jobs. Then, maybe a generation from now, non-royal men might answer phones in their offices and who knows where it will go after that? The Saudis have a massive demographic and unemployment problem of their own making. |
| Posted by: true nuff 2005-01-30 4:27:53 PM |
| #1 Interesting development. Just musing about what jobs the Saudis would consider acceptable for their wymyns... This will prolly hit Indians the hardest. It is an oddity of Saudi employment habits that Indian males, lesser numbers of Filipino and Pakiwaki males, end up in the "top" clerical and sales positions in "soft" businesses - such as retail stores and mall outlets. It's a freakish, particularly Saudi, form of soft racism - effectively, non-Arab Asian males are not viewed as men. At Aramco, the classification for non-Saudis is "AOA" - Arab and Other Asian. The OAs of that designation are automatically discriminated against - peaking out at clerical / bookkeeper jobs. I guess this means that when Maha, Haifa, and Rima have their Indian / Paki / Flip drivers take them down to Fredericks of Mekkah for that special Eid teddy, the one with the cutouts, they won't have the thrill of dealing with Ravi Shankar. Bummer, babes. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-01-30 4:16:07 PM |