There has been a rush in the number of workers registering at the Labour Market Regulatory Authority’s (LMRA) specialised centres, it has been revealed.
The LMRA said in an answer to a parliamentary committee that the registration centres received 24,820 applications from expat workers in the first half of this year, of which 19,442 were approved.
The LMRA answers, a copy of which was obtained by our Arabic sister paper Akhbar Al Khaleej, show a big jump in the number of applications received during the second quarter of this year, 22,394 compared with 2,426 in the first quarter.
The number of approved applications increased by more than 50 times from 375 to 19,067.
The aim of the workers’ registration system that was launched last December was to regularise the legal status of the expat workers living in Bahrain and the holders of the flexi permits.
The LMRA said that this helped stabilise the market and limit the social and economic negative effects of illegal workers.
The LMRA statistics also showed a significant drop in applications to bring in new workers in the first half of this year – 90,899 applications down from 114,097 in the second half of 2022.
Applications for housemaids also dropped to 12,294 in the first half of this year, down from 17,653 in the first half of last year.
The GDN reported earlier that expats on flexi visas and those without a valid work permit would have to register at specialised centres to be set up in Bahrain.
The LMRA had said then that applications would not be accepted from runaways and those who entered the country on a visit visa.
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