Bahrain - An ambitious plan has been initiated to provide more than 25,000 Bahraini jobseekers with work in the private sector.

Labour and Social Development Minister Jameel Humaidan said the strategy for this year would focus on employing at least 8,000 of them in stable, secure and well-paid jobs.

He told parliament in writing – documents of which were released to the Press yesterday – that the ministry was also working with the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) to ensure companies with below acceptable Bahrainisation levels to reach the set target under a national drive to be launched later this year.

Wages

“To reach our intended target of employing 25,000 Bahrainis this year, we need to see wages increased through better jobs, while focusing on university graduates particularly and women in general” said Mr Humaidan.

“However, to make Bahrainis the preferred choice we have to enrol them in specific training and vocational programmes, which enable them to compete with others in the labour market.

“We already have in mind several sectors that Bahrainis would want to work in such as retail, hospitality and others.”

He also informed MPs that the ministry has launched an electronic assessment system for job applications, which has helped in the introduction of several new training programmes.

He added that last year 500 training programmes were introduced, with 6,239 Bahrainis benefitting.

“The ministry also offers training with guaranteed work under a newly introduced programme,” he explained.

“We are working on new advancements to this initiative that will be announced at a later date, with us already seeing 485 people benefiting last year and we expect double the number this year.

“The part-time employment scheme, which mostly women have benefited from, will see wages increased in co-operation with Tamkeen as things are progressing in the right direction, with 4,000 people enrolled in the past four years.

“We will also increase our specialised career exhibitions from the regular seven jobs fairs to 10 this year as we seek to get 3,000 jobs from them.”

Unemployment

There are 188,724 Bahraini workers and 8,399 jobseekers, revealed the minister.

“Unemployment in Bahrain is at 4.3 per cent and is safe, but we are working to further reduce it through numerous initiatives,” he said.

“Last year, we provided 24,685 Bahrainis with jobs, of which 6,403 were newcomers to the private labour market and 1,492 civil servants (also newcomers), while the rest were moving on to better jobs.”

He added that plans were underway to work with bodies concerned to provide more job opportunities for Bahrainis such as working with the Economic Development Board, the Health Ministry, and the National Health Regulatory Authority.

He also said the ministry was working to transfer all its services electronically in co-ordination with the Information and eGovernment Authority.

He was responding to questions put forward by MPs including the state of the Flexible Work Permit.

Mr Humaidan stressed that violators of the permit, which was introduced by the LMRA around two years ago, were being seriously dealt with to ensure they did not damage the local labour market.

His replies will be debated at parliament’s weekly session on Tuesday when MPs will also discuss proposed amendments to the 2006 Labour Market Regulatory Law.

The amendments would oblige expatriate domestic employees who run away from their sponsors to pay for their ticket back home or have their relatives pay for repatriation if they die. The government has warned MPs that most of the workers in that segment arrived in Bahrain from low-income families, meaning the payments would eventually have to be shouldered from public coffers.

 

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