COMPANIES with 50 or more employees could be obliged to provide training to Bahraini university graduates for three months.
This condition is contained in an amendment to Article 16 of the 2007 Vocational Training Law which the Shura Council is set to vote to accept for review, during its weekly session on Sunday.
Under the changes, proposed by five members led by Ejlal Bubshait, the Labour Ministry will have to provide the list of trainees to companies detailing their duties, responsibilities and work conditions besides payments due from the provider and wage support from the government.
“Most of the companies just reject university graduates on the basis that they don’t fit the mould, even before giving them a chance to prove their worth,” said Ms Bubshait.
“Companies have to give a chance for Bahrainis to get accustomed to their needs and requirements and this should come through obligatory training in their establishments,” she added.
“The intention should always be that whenever the three-month period is over, the university graduates would be employed because they will be ready to take up assigned duties and responsibilities.
“According to 2022 statistics, there are 1,423 companies with 50 or more employees – out of them 750 have 50 to 99 employees, 551 employ 100 to 399 staff, and 122 have 400 employees or more.
“These companies could easily resolve the unemployment problems currently being faced by jobless Bahraini university graduates.”
Finance and National Economy Minister Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa said earlier in the week that the government’s target was to find 20,000 jobs and 10,000 training opportunities annually.
He said that last year, the employment target reached 150 per cent and training 103pc, adding that until March this year, 36pc of the targeted citizens were found jobs and training reached 21pc of the target.
Meanwhile, Shura Council members are also set to be notified about a written response by Shaikh Salman, who is also the Social Insurance Organisation (SIO) board chairman, on pension funds.
He said that reforms introduced last year have helped increase the lifespan of the funds by six years.
“An actuarial study this year will assess the reforms introduced,” said the minister.
“Getting expatriate workers’ end-of-service payments sent to the SIO has helped give more revenues to work with and could improve the financial status,” he added.
“Since new reforms were introduced, 1,220 Bahrainis have applied to get virtual (unworked) years added to their pensions, some have opted for full advance payment and others for instalments.”
In another written response, Parliament and Shura Council Affairs Minister Ghanim Al Buainain has revealed that 123 requests to outsource manpower services at ministries and government bodies have been reviewed and recommended by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) from December until date.
Mr Al Buainain, who is politically responsible for the CSC, said 16 contracts were approved for consultancy and auditing, and 26 for specialised services such as financial and engineering, and 81 for maintenance and cleaning.
On outsourcing work, the minister said that the final say was in hands of the individual ministry or government body.
“We continuously work with all ministries and government bodies to ensure that employees are not harmed due to the privatisation of services through outsourcing.”
He added that the CSC was currently busy revamping employment and hierarchy structures at ministries and government bodies.
“Since December, we have completed 17 studies on foundation structures and 335 studies on detailed structures. Earlier, we had managed to restructure 54 establishments.
mohammed@gdnmedia.bh
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