In an effort to enforce the regulations, the Labour Ministry threatened on July 11 to close any lingerie shops that failed to replace all male staff within six months.
"We read about the order in newspapers but we did not receive any instructions (from management)... This plan can work but not at the speed they are expecting. The women have to be trained from scratch," said Tarek, a store manager at a lingerie shop in Jeddah.
In Saudi Arabia's conservative society, where religious police patrol the streets to enforce segregation of the sexes, women are not allowed to work in public places where they have contact with men, such as sale clerks or cashiers.
Shops that hire females must bear the cost of training them, cover their display windows to block the view into the stores and hire a male security guard, for at least 3,500 riyals ($930) a month, during work hours to keep men from entering.
One of Saudi Arabia's leading lingerie brands, Nayomi, made the switch after the first government decree was issued in 2004, staffing their 45 stores with female clerks only to revert to male employees a year later.
"In 2004, we implemented the order and hired women ... we faced a lot of problems," said a manager at Nayomi, who asked not to be identified. "The experience lasted about a year and we lost a lot of money, over 10 million riyals."
Poor sales owing to a lack of male customers, the high cost of ensuring security, the inability to lure customers with a window display and the reluctance of some women employees to work late shifts in a country where shops stay open until 11 pm led to the losses.
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