SAUDI ARABIA

Opportunities abound in car rental offices

September 30, 2018



A Saudi employee serves customers at a car rental office.
A Saudi employee serves customers at a car rental office.

By Hazem Al-Mutairi

Okaz/Saudi Gazette

RIYADH —
The car rental sector has many job openings with salaries ranging from SR4,500 to SR7,000 for young Saudi job seekers, according to a field survey conducted by Okaz/Saudi Gazette.

The job opportunities have become visible after the Ministry of Labor and Social Development started enforcing 100 percent Saudization in the sector beginning July last year. Saudization is compulsory in such jobs in the sector as accounting, supervision, sales, receiving and delivering.

“There aren’t many challenges in the industry. Everything is going smoothly and experience is easy to gain, but I think there should be a training program for Saudi job applicants before employment in order to get the best results. Many companies interested in more than just employing a Saudi applicant are doing that,” said Talat Al-Harbi, a recent recruit in one of the car rental offices.

Al-Harbi also talked about the encouraging aspects of the industry.

“The salaries are good and that is the biggest encouragement for young people. The salaries would start at SR4,600 including accommodation and transportation allowances. Sometimes an applicant can even end up with SR5,400 and in big companies salaries can reach as high as SR7,500 if the applicant have certain qualifications,” he said.

Al-Harbi has a master’s degree in administrative science from King Abdulaziz University. He said he chose the offer as a temporary job until he can find what he is looking for.

Al-Harbi mentioned some of the challenges facing young employees. These include a lack of enough on-the-job experience and assignments in remote locations far away from the city, he added.

Muhamed Yousef, who has five years of experience in the field, stated some of the positive aspects of employment in this sector.

The most important lesson he learned was public relations, which will help him in future jobs, especially if the company deals with VIP customers.

Regarding interest by women to apply for these jobs, Muhannad Al-Sulami, who is a manager at one of the car rental companies, stated, “Women usually have the role of supervisors who make sure that everything is running smoothly, or in the collection department, which is to follow up and collect outstanding dues from clients.”

Ever since the Saudization decision was enforced in the car rental industry, the Ministry of Labor and Social Development has carried out 20,398 inspection tours with the support of many government agencies.

The official spokesman for the ministry, Khalid Aba Al-Khail, said the inspectors discovered that 18,870 companies had applied Saudization regulations while 640 had not. He also said they detected 697 violations, of which 519 were breach of Saudization rules. He asked all ministry clients to communicate through its call center or “Ma’an Llrasd”, which is a specialized mobile app.

Labor offices in collaboration with related departments have organized many surprise inspections on commercial establishments in the region of Riyadh, to make sure that they are complying with the rules of Saudization in car rental offices, clothes shops and furniture showrooms. The inspections were successful in detecting 130 violations while 174 establishments were issued warning notices.

In Riyadh, the teams visited 115 shops and warned 10 of them.


September 30, 2018
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