Saudi Arabia: 350 thousand women entered the workforce in the last 3 years

Lama Al Sulaiman, Board Member of Rolaco and Vice Chairwoman of Jeddah Chamber of Commerce talks about women participation in the Saudi Economy.

She said, “Women’s participation in the economy comes under a few sectors. For a long time we have had women participating in family business because of course a lot of women inherit the business from their father with their brothers and the rest of the family. In that sense women are active in either overlooking or becoming shareholders and many times becoming board members of the family business. However, we do not have enough female board members in the family businesses.

Secondly, there are women that set up their own businesses. You will find that women entrepreneurs here are not a large number, only 4% of businesses here are owned by women; this is because about ten years ago the legislations and regulations were not in place to support women in business. Those women that did start businesses really went against the flow.

Over the past 3 years more than 350 thousand women entered the workforce. This development helped increase women participation to 17% of the workforce, which is still a low number. The legislation has changed in the past 5 years and there has been huge support from the government to increase women’s participation in the workforce.”