RIYADH — Saudi Arabia's Human Resources Development Fund (HADAF) has raised the ceiling for financial support to female beneficiaries of the Working Women Transportation Support Program (Wusool) to SR1,100 from SR800 per month. The period for benefiting from the program has also been extended to 24 months instead of 12 months. The Wusool program, one of the key features of the National Transformation Program, aims to empower Saudi female workers in the private sector by increasing their participation in the employment market by providing them with subsidies in transportation costs between their homes and workplaces. Of late, a number of major improvements have been made in the program with the objective of covering a much larger number of applicants for the program and facilitating registration procedures. According to the new mechanism, women employees who have registered in the program can benefit from the subsidy by deducting 80 percent of the cost of each trip after the maximum limit has been raised to SR1,100 per month for beneficiaries with a monthly wage of less than SR6000, and with a maximum of SR800 per month for beneficiaries whose monthly wages range between SR6,000 to SR8,000. The period of benefiting from the program has been extended from 12 months to 24 months and this is out of the keenness on the safety of the beneficiaries of the Wusool program and ensuring the quality and safety of transportation service, which is to be provided through companies licensed by the Ministry of Transport. Female citizens who wish to participate as vehicle drivers can join the licensed companies that are part of the program. The Wusool program covers all the Kingdom's 13 regions, namely Riyadh, Makkah, the Eastern Province, Madinah, Tabuk, Asir, Qassim, Hail, Jazan, the Northern Border, Najran, Al-Jouf, and Al-Baha. In an earlier statement, HADAF revealed that a total of 64,577 Saudi female employees have benefited from Wusool, since the program was launched in November 2017 until the end of June 2020. Riyadh region has the highest number of beneficiaries with 28,308 followed by the Makkah region with 19,463 and the Eastern Region with 9,186 beneficiaries.
