Wages of Bahraini employees in the private sector will be subsidised by up to 70 per cent for three years under the new National Employment Programme.

The second edition of the programme, organised by Tamkeen and the Labour and Social Development Ministry, will allow employers to register their job vacancies and manage them through the ministry’s website www.mlsd.gov.bh They can also use it to view the list of local jobseekers.

Employers will be able to take advantage of the benefits of the programme – including subsidising the wages of Bahraini employees by up to 70pc for a period of three years for all qualifications.

Labour and Social Development Minister Jameel Humaidan called on citizens who had not previously registered with the ministry to do so at the earliest in order to avail of the opportunities.

“The successful implementation of the National Employment Programme will enhance Bahrain’s ability to control unemployment rates within its safe and reassuring margins, and overcome the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Mr Humaidan.

“The programme is an integrated project that provides opportunities for qualitative and specialised training, as it’s the main gateway for citizens to obtain remunerative jobs in the private sector,” he said.

In order to benefit from this programme, the employer must have an active commercial registration or licence, the enterprise must be based in Bahrain and have cleared offences, if any, with the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) and possess records of monthly payments. The enterprise’s employees must be registered under the Social Insurance Organisation (SIO).

To be eligible for a subsidy, an employee must be a Bahraini national and must have registered with the SIO.

The employee must also meet or exceed the minimum salary based on their highest academic qualifications: for high school graduates or lower it is BD300, the minimum for diploma holders is BD380 and for those with a bachelor’s it’s BD 450.

Allocation

The GDN previously reported that Tamkeen has allocated a budget of BD120 million for the next three years (2021-2023) for the programme with the aim of employing 25,000 citizens and providing 10,000 training opportunities.

The programme will see the reopening of all of Tamkeen’s schemes aimed at enabling Bahrainis to be the employee of choice within the private sector. This is in addition to supporting employers to create new job opportunities for citizens and improve their wages, since the average wage of national workers in the private sector amounts to BD763.

The second initiative is keeping local job vacancies open to Bahrainis for three weeks instead of two weeks earlier, before offering the jobs to expatriate workers.

This would give employers better opportunities to select candidates based on their needs.

Under the third initiative the LMRA will work with the Interior Ministry to tighten security measures for monitoring and deporting illegal workers enabling Bahrainis to be the employee of choice.

ghazi@gdn.com.bh

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