A job advertisement to recruit 30 female train drivers in Saudi Arabia has generated nearly 28,000 applications.
A success that speaks volumes about the aspirations of Saudi women, in an ultra-conservative country that has recently relaxed its restrictions on the employment of women.
The advertisement, published in January by a branch of the Spanish railway company Renfe, proposes to train candidates while paying them for a year.
Aged 22 to 30, they have already passed a first phase of online selection based on their school records and their English skills, says a press release from Renfe, which has already eliminated half of the applicants.
The thirty drivers selected will be required to pilot, from March 2023, high-speed trains on the railway line linking Mecca to Medina, a route taken by millions of Muslim pilgrims each year.
The Spanish rail operator currently employs 80 men to drive its trains in Saudi Arabia, and another 50 are being trained.
But "this is the first time in the country's history that Saudi women will have access to this profession", highlights Renfe.
"I'm not very surprised," comments Arnaud Lacheret, author of "Women are the future of the Gulf: what Arab modernity says about us" (ed. Waterfront).
"There is currently a real communication around the employment of women in Saudi Arabia, certainly towards foreign countries, but also to encourage Saudi women to integrate the labor market".
Headhunting firms to employ Saudi women
Even if the repression of political opponents, and in particular of feminist activists, has increased in Saudi Arabia under the impetus of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi society has been experiencing real upheavals since he launched a vast modernization plan to open up the kingdom and diversify its economy.
After gaining the right to drive in 2018, Saudi women, who make up nearly 42% of the population, were allowed from 2019 to travel without male permission, create their own company and more recently to live alone.
In five years, according to a study by the American think tank Brooking institutions, the activity rate of women has increased from 20 to 33% in 2021.
Most of these women now work in the tourism, leisure and hospitality sectors, but they have also massively invested in human resources, finance and banking, as well as new technologies.
Until 2012, Saudi women were only allowed to practice jobs out of sight, especially in offices or shops.
Arnaud Lacheret, who is also a professor of political science, runs an MBA in partnership with ESSEC in Bahrain.
He sees thirty-something Saudi women arriving in his master's degree, who came to train late in life after the opening of the job market to women in Saudi Arabia.
"There is a real desire to feminize the professions, including through a quota policy. Today,
An economic necessity
If the guardianships have been relaxed, allowing women to leave the home and exercise the trades they like, the reality is more complex, underlines this keen observer of Saudi society.
"The law has changed, but the tradition persists. Culturally, women still have to convince whoever had the last word in the family to accept that they work."
However, an "unintended consequence" of Mohammed bin Salman's reforms came to work in favor of Saudi women.
"By dint of privatizing the country and cutting back on public subsidies to families, the sovereign has created a need among the working classes and the middle classes in Saudi Arabia. Men are more likely to let their wives go to work, since he it's about the financial survival of the family", explains Arnaud Lacheret.
More broadly, the employment of women is part of a national strategy to exit from all-oil.
While the oil revenue is running out, Saudi women are called upon to participate in the development of the tourism, finance or even new technologies and artificial intelligence sectors, on which power is now betting.
And this, especially since since the Covid-19 crisis, several million foreign workers from India, Pakistan or the Philippines have left the country.
Employers then turned to Saudi women, who are more likely to accept low wages even if they are more qualified, indicated a second study by Brooking Institutions.
Still, this last pool of employment could evaporate very quickly with the return of migrant workers.
They are paid on average more than half as much as Saudi women.
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