About 25,000 mobile shops all over the Kingdom have followed the ministerial decision to nationalize jobs during the first phase of three months from early June to early September, Ministry of Labor and Social Development has announced. The ministry has decided that jobs in shops for selling and maintenance of mobile phones and accessories should be nationalized by 100 percent during the coming three months starting Sept. 2. The ministry said its inspection teams carried out 28,335 visits to mobile shops to ascertain their commitment to the decision, registered 3,670 violations and closed down 2,057 shops and referred 2,635 to the punishment committee. Ministry's undersecretary, Fahd Al-Owaidi, in statements to Makkah daily on Tuesday described the first phase as successful and said thousands of job opportunities were secured for young Saudi men and women. "The nationalization drive has not only provided work opportunities for Saudis but has also tightened the grip on tassatur (expatriates doing business in the names of Saudis)," he said. Ouwaidi said the ministry was determined to organize this vital sector so as to attract national investments which are now making headways. According to the ministry, the rate of the mobile job nationalization was 96 percent in Najran which was leading all the other regions, 93 percent in the Eastern Province and 91 percent in each of the Northern Border region, Hail and Tabuk. It said the ratio was 89 in Riyadh, 87 percent in Jazan, 84 percent in Madinah and 83 percent in both Al-Baha and Al-Jouf. According to the ministry, the Saudization rate was 76 percent in Makkah region and about 70 percent in Asir which came at the bottom of the list. Owaidi asked citizens and expatriates to inform about the violating mobile shops on the ministry's electronic site "together for monitoring" or through its free toll number of 19911. The ministry has built permanent offices for its inspection teams in Riyadh and has appointed 100 new inspectors to boost the Riyadh labor office. The mobile unit of the Human Resource Development Fund (Hadaf) has been providing training and employment services to interested candidates in mobile phone sector in main cities during the past two months. Hadaf has helped a number of Saudis in these cities to find jobs in the sector after providing them with necessary training. "We conduct training programs to help young Saudi men and women get employed in the sector," a Hadaf official said.
