JEDDAH — A women-only telecommunication center has recently been opened in Riyadh in line with the new vision to Saudize the sector. Ibrahim Al-Shafei, head of the nationalization program at the Ministry of Labor and Social Development who attended the inauguration of the center, noted that their support to such initiatives come to enhance the participation of Saudi youth in the private sector. He also noted that the Saudization of this sector will be followed by other sectors to give more opportunities to youth to meet the goals of NTP 2020 along with Vision 2030. He said the ministry has witnessed a positive cooperation from investors in this sector who supported the nationalization program. The owner of the Al-Rimal center Abdulrahman Alhimaid noted that he has allocated a specific section in his center to women so they can have privacy while maintaining their mobile phones. Meanwhile, field inspectors have documented 2,983 violations in all provinces of the Kingdom. Of these, 2,167 cases have has been referred to the violation committee while 1,692 shops have been closed down. The ministry has also warned some 816 other shops. The ministry has done over 20,000 field inspections since Ramadan and they will continue until the entire sector is Saudized by this Haj season. Until now inspection teams have visited 6,382 establishments. Majority of these visits were in Riyadh region followed by Makkah, Qasim, Asir, Al-Madinah among others. The deputy minister of labor and social development in charge of investigation and development of work environment noted that the ministry will be tough with those who employ non-Saudis in the telecommunication shops. He called on the public to inform about any violations by calling 19911. Over 27,000 Saudis trained In cooperation with the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation, the labor ministry has trained 27,983 Saudi males and females in the field of telecommunication. The trainees spent 25,300 hours in apprenticeship over three months. The trainees of both genders were distributed in 1,472 classes conducted in all regions of the Kingdom where they got needed apprenticeship relating to customer service, salesmanship and basic maintenance.
