SAUDI WOMEN STEP INTO CORPORATE SPOTLIGHT
Increasing female workforce participation is set to boost several sectors and also help tackle youth unemployment
When Wafaa Mukhtar saw the job ad for a Saudi female driver, she first thought it was a joke.
Realising it was a serious offer, Ms Mukhtar, 25, a Jeddah resident and banker, signed up immediately. By day, the micro-finance officer lends money to female entrepreneurs.
By night, she’s training with Dubaibased ride-hailing company Careem to become a “Captinah”.
“In this day and age, the woman has to take on many roles because of the economy. Life is changing, so why not take responsibility for household expenses?” she says. “Driving ladies around will make me happy; you meet new people, make new connections,” says Ms Mukhtar, who lives with her parents but pays for her own upkeep.
The kingdom’s decision to overturn a ban on female motorists in June follows a target to increase women’s participation in the labour force from 22 per cent to 30 per cent over the next 12 years, as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plan to wean the economy off its oil dependence.
Giving women driving licences and better access to the workforce will improve mobility and unlock an underutilised resource: more women will work, thereby spurring productivity, incomes and economic growth. Engaging women will help tackle the problem of a youth unemployment rate of 31 per cent, of which young women are a staggering 58 per cent.
It will boost industries from car sales to entertainment, aviation to banking and retail, and reassure investors of Saudi Arabia’s push to diversify its economy and beef up the private sector. But analysts expect the initial boost to growth to be modest, as more jobs need to be created and more nationals trained in skills required by employers.
“The policy is a positive development. Increasingly, women have been looking to join the workforce to support the household income, especially with the slowdown in economic activity,” says Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.
Here’s a look at some of the sectors set to gain from increasing the number of women joining the workforce.
Aviation
The kingdom is training women to work as air traffic controllers for the first time. State-owned Saudi Air Navigation Services (Sans) selected 24 women this year for a one-year training programme to certify them for ATC jobs in Jeddah and Riyadh.
Sans, which currently has 600 controllers, will recruit 200 more in the next two years, and female trainees who pass the course are guaranteed jobs, says Ryyan Tarabzoni, the Sans chief executive. “If you want to take the challenge, then take it to the next level: there’s nothing hindering us from that except training,” Mr Tarabzoni says. “Air traffic controllers require multi-tasking, communications and a good understanding of maths and science, which isn’t hard to find in women.”
Some 7,000 women applied for the first course, which began in March with 12 students. The next batch will start in the second half of the year.
The programme provides courses in maths, science, English, air control and tower control combined with hands-on simulation training.
Selection criteria include a minimum of a high school degree with good grades, knowledge of science and maths, proficiency in English and multi-tasking skills. The next step to empower Saudi women in aviation should be training and hiring them for more technical jobs as engineers and pilots, Mr Tarabzoni says.
The General Authority of Civil Aviation, Saudi Arabia’s aviation regulator, is “keen” on hiring qualified local women and intends to “raise their participation levels” in many fields, says Fahad Alharbi, president of the Saudi Academy of Civil aviation. It is running an on-the-job training programme for women with the goal of appointing them in managerial roles at the authority.
Automotive
Careem, whose riders in the kingdom are 70 per cent female, has selected 3,000 women to train as drivers, or Captinahs.
The availability of female drivers will unlock a new clientele of women who previously did not use the app to avoid being in a car with a man, says Abdulla Elyas, Careem co-founder and chief people officer.
“We’re opening a new customer segment which we couldn’t get before,” Mr Elyas says.
“What car-hailing offers is you are your own boss, you decide for yourself as a woman and a mother what’s the best time to stop the app or go for a booking and still contribute to your household and society,” he says.
“This is super important to empower women.”
With an estimated 3 million Saudi women behind the wheel by 2020, car sales are expected to rise an average 9 per cent a year until 2025, car leasing to grow 4 per cent annually and the motor insurance market value to jump 9 per cent to reach 30 billion riyals (Dh29.38bn), according to a PwC report released in March.
Car sales are expected to accelerate 12 per cent to 825,000 vehicles this year alone, says Jeff Schuster, analyst at LMC Automative.
Toyota and Hyundai, which dominate the kingdom’s car market with more than 60 per cent share, will continue to benefit as women start to buy vehicles for themselves.
Other brands, such as Nissan, Renault, Ford and Chevrolet are set to gain as sales of smaller saloons are expected to rise 60 per cent this year and account for 40 per cent of the market by 2022, up from 35 per cent today. Motor insurance companies have emerged as key beneficiaries with “strong capacity to grow”, says Shadi Salman, vice president of research at Shuaa Capital. “Given current valuations, we are most bullish on Tawuniya and Walaa, whilst Al Rajhi, Salama, AXA and Malath have had strong rallies,” Mr Salman says.
Just a 10 per cent increase in driving activity as women hit the road will add 60,000 barrels a day to domestic petrol demand, energy consultancy Facts Global Energy says.
This could be a boon for European refiners, because Saudi Arabia is a net petrol importer and the world’s ninth largest consumer of the fuel.
Real Estate
Nada Bundakji, a Saudi businesswoman, is gearing up for the September opening of a new company in Jeddah catering to an increasing appetite for property from female buyers.
“We’re seeing a big trend in Saudi women looking to invest in local highend real estate, because there’s more financial literacy,” says Ms Bundakji,
general manager of Saudi Gulf House Real Estate in Jeddah.
More than half of the top-tier property clientele are already Saudi women investors, businesswomen, or housewives with inherited funds, she says. She expects that to increase. “With factors such as education and women driving, I see a lot of single women and single mums eventually owning their own high-end luxury apartments and being more independent,” Ms Bundakji says. The company is considering offering luxury cars with developers to incentivise women to buy high-end property, she says.
Entertainment
Saudi Arabia is investing $64bn to build an entertainment industry over the next decade in a bid to redirect leisure spending by residents, many of whom travel abroad extensively, back into the kingdom.
Last year the General Entertainment Authority helped create 17,500 jobs and attracted 8m people to events; by 2030 it aims to create more than 220,000 jobs.
Workforce Saudia (WFS), a recruitment agency planning to increase the number of Saudi female hires, sees great potential for women to work in the entertainment industry, especially after the kingdom recently lifted a 30year ban on cinemas.
“You’ll see client-facing Saudi women taking orders for tickets and popcorn,” says Neal Carley, managing director of Saudi Gulf Intertrade, which operates under the same umbrella as WFS.
WFS has 1,500 women employed and has plans to expand that by 25 per cent in 2019. “We communicate with our clients and drive the number of Saudi women in the workplace and train them. There’s a lot of them available and eager to work,” Mr Carley says.
Retail
Saudi women have made progress in the retail sector particularly, where they already hold more than 200,000 jobs, according to the Ministry of Labour.
“We’re hiring female sales executives for retail,” Mr Carley says. “Having women in client-facing roles is important for female buyers.”
Saudi Arabia’s annual retail sales are forecast to grow to $141.5bn by 2021, up from $110bn in 2016, according to an Alpen Capital report.
“The retail sector is one sector where women can do extremely well,” says Nasser Saidi, consultant and former chief economist of Dubai’s DIFC.
“One of the key areas of job creation is where you see Saudisation and that’s in retail.”
The digital revolution will also help women enter the workforce, he says.
The digital economy, including e-commerce, is one area that favours women with freedom to work from home and flexible hours.
Women will also excel in hospitality and tourism, two sectors the crown prince is pushing to expand under the National Transformation Plan, analysts say. “Tourism and entertainment will be big and these are sectors that favour women,” Mr Saidi says. “If that opens up we’re talking about a wide range of occupations for women.”
Banking
In the male-dominated banking and finance sector, the kingdom has already appointed women to top positions, increasing their participation in the private sector.
In January, Emirates NBD Capital, the investment unit of Dubai’s biggest bank, hired Mona Al Tawil as chief executive for its Saudi unit.
Last year, Sarah al Suhaimi, chief executive of NCB Capital, became the first chairwoman of the region’s biggest stock exchange, Tadawul.
Citigroup, meanwhile, hired Carmen Haddad to lead its banking operations in Saudi Arabia and Riyadh-based Samba Financial Group named Rania Nashar as chief executive.