Unemployment among Saudi women has reached 28 percent, while their representation does not go beyond 1.2 percent in the Kingdom's 5,214 factories, according to a senior official of the Labor Ministry.

Addressing a workshop in Dammam on Wednesday, Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Labor for development Fahd Al-Tikhaifi revealed that the ministry had about 1.6 million CVs of women looking for jobs, including holders of doctorate and master's degrees.

Al-Tikhaifi was speaking at the workshop at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry under the title "Feminizing and Saudizing Industrial Jobs."

He said the current manpower in the factories in the Kingdom is 678,000, of which only 14.1 percent are Saudis.

Al-Tikhaifi revealed that Saudi women no longer needed the consent of their father or custodian to be employed. "The new labor laws have canceled this condition," he pointed out.

He said the ministry was currently considering a transport project for women employed in factories. "A 60-memeber committee is currently discussing the project, which is aimed at enabling Saudi women to join work in industrial establishments," he said.

Al-Tikhaifi said about 20,000 Saudi women had expressed their willingness to work for productive sectors, 16,000 in construction and contracting and 65,000 in insurance.

Meanwhile, local Arabic daily Al-Watan yesterday quoted Labor Minister Adel Fakeih as saying that Saudi women would take leading positions in the ministry by the end of this year. "The ministry is determined to place women in leading positions in government departments. Any post held by a man can easily be filled by a qualified woman," he said.

The minister also said that women would be real partners in all labor offices in the Kingdom. There are currently 23 labor offices in the 23 regions of the Kingdom.