Bahraini jobseekers are graduating in the wrong fields and should reassess their course of study at university, according to experts.

The new graduates should ensure that they are well-equipped with the necessary skills to meet the current demands of the job market.

The experts also added that the labour market in the GCC, including Bahrain, needed to be revamped with the primary focus on job creation.

“Bahrainis are graduating in the wrong fields,” said Alharith Alatawi, co-founder and chief executive of onegcc, a Bahrain-based start-up offering a digital platform for GCC recruitment.

“We have the private sector which has no choice but to hire GCC nationals, but the jobseekers are nowhere to be found,” he told the GDN.

“Only five per cent of them (GCC nationals) think they have adequate information on how to write a CV (curriculum vitae) and apply for jobs, let alone even be available online for these companies to easily source, interview and later on hire.

“The problem is, when you ask the jobseekers why they aren’t applying for jobs, they say they don’t have ‘wasta’, or connections.”

According to the Labour and Social Development Ministry, the unemployment rate in Bahrain is only four per cent.

However, Mr Alatawi said 30pc of Bahraini youth are unemployed while only 50pc of them are able to secure a job interview within the first two years of graduating.

“For instance, there are around 500 to 600 Bahrainis working in the media field and this year I think around 1,500 will be graduating in the same field. I have no idea where they will be hired.

“In Saudi, the problem is even bigger as 40pc of them are graduating in humanitarian and Islamic studies – who will hire them?

“The government has incentivised hiring Bahrainis so much so it becomes easier for start-ups to hire Bahrainis with less funds,” said the 31-year-old who was hopeful of Bahrain improving employment rates with tech start-ups and locally hiring companies.

Onegcc was listed as one of the 15 most innovative start-ups in the Middle East and North Africa by Forbes magazine in October last year.

Meanwhile, Jaffari Consultants (Jafcon) chief executive Dr Akbar Jaffari insisted on reforms in the educational and training sectors.

“The speed of economic growth is much rapid compared to the speed of developing the labour force. This is very natural as one is very fast and the other very slow.

“You cannot stop growth, but our education system has not lived up to expectations, of reforming to meet the requirements.

“There are many factors that are irrelevant to our economy, it’s worth focusing on this and revamping it.

“There is more focus on teaching rather than training. We need on-the-job training, applied training and action learning which enables the nationals to be productive.”

Urging Bahrainis to aim for high-value jobs, he questioned attempts to solve unemployment by offering low-quality jobs to Bahrainis, which he called “semi-unemployment”.

“Sixty-four pc of the economy’s growth is attributed to the labour force.

“We have nearly 650,000 jobs in Bahrain but only 150,000 are in the hands of Bahrainis.

“Unemployment (in Bahrain) is not the same as in an advanced economy where there are no jobs but people willing to offer services. In Bahrain, there are jobs but the nationals are not enabled to apply to them.”

He suggested companies boost their Bahrainisation rates to increase productivity and overall profit, citing the examples of Alba, Bapco and Banagas.

In December (2017), Bahrain in Figures 2016 stated that the unemployment rate that year was 4.3pc, while it was 3.5pc in 2015, 3.8pc in 2014 and 4.3pc in 2013.

Figures also showed that last year (2017), 8,485 Bahrainis were unemployed – of which a staggering 6,998 were women – compared with 6,946 Bahrainis without jobs in 2015.

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