Recently released figures from Saudi Arabia’s Central Department of Statistics show that Saudi women have a long way to go in achieving equality in the workforce in the Kingdom, a longstanding challenge with economic and social facets facing Saudi Arabia’s new King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud and Labor Minister Adel Al-Fakeih.
The official statistics found that Saudi women occupy only 13 percent of private and public positions occupied by nationals, despite accounting for 51 percent of Saudi graduates, according to the Saudi Gazette and reprinted in Al Arabiya news outlets.
The study also found that 64 percent of bachelor’s degree graduates from public and private universities in the Kingdom in 2010, 2011 and 2012 were women.
Although this figure seems on the surface to be startlingly low for a nation that is part of the G20 and the Arab world’s largest economy, it still represents progress for an economy that is growing at a much faster pace than its society is changing.
The article quotes Nawaf al-Dhabib, an expert at the Arab Society for Human Resources Management, as saying, “It is not an accurate comparison to compare men and women graduates at this stage in our societal development…Many unemployed women graduates choose to stay at home. We need the official authorities to intervene in order to open up women’s employment to all sectors of the Kingdom.”
