Just a week after Saudi Arabia's General Directorate of Passports announced it will> start recruiting women to work at airports and land border-crossing points across the kingdom, its officials were shocked by the number of applications they received.
According to Al Arabiya, the authority listed 140 available positions on their website earlier last week and have since received a whopping 107,000 applications.
Local news sites stated that directorate's officials weren't expecting the huge response to their listings but have since reviewed the applications, sorting them out according to already set >vacancy conditions.
In order to be considered for one of the open vacancies at the authority, applicants must be Saudi nationals who are between 25 and 35 years old.
All >candidates must also be medically qualified for military service and ready to commit to specified shifts in any region or province which they may get assigned to.
Under Vision 2030, more professions have been opening up to Saudi women
News of the increase in women applying to jobs available to them in Saudi Arabia comes at a time when the country's Vision 2030 is opening up new work opportunities for them.
Launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the> ever-transforming footprint, which aims to diversify the economy beyond oil, mandates increasing the percentage of Saudi women in the workforce.
In October last year, the country created >80,000 jobs for Saudi women after it limited work in women's wear stores across the kingdom to them.
During the same month, Saudi officials >announced that the Gulf state's Air Navigation Services Company (SANS) was planning to employ women as air traffic controllers for the first time in the country's history.
Women are now already a significant part of the country's workforce
In recent years and months, more women have been >joining the country's workforce than ever before.
According to figures provided by the Ministry of Labour and Social Development, the number of Saudi women working in the private sector increased by >130 percent between 2012 and 2016.
The figures also stated that the percentage of women in the private sector's workforce increased from 12 percent to 30 percent between 2011 and 2017.