Bahrain: Eighty-four per cent of Bahrain’s private sector workforce is expatriate, it has emerged.
Of the 556,086 people working in the private sector by the end of the second quarter, 466,524 were foreign employees.
Labour and Social Development Minister Jameel Humaidan revealed the figures to parliament in a written response, adding the expatriate workforce was growing five per cent annually.
He said only 89,592 Bahrainis were working in the private sector, with an annual growth rate
of 3pc.
“There is an increase in the percentage of growth for expatriates from previous periods, but at the same there is an increase of Bahrainis in the private sector compared with previous periods as we have introduced several programmes and incentives to attract them to the sector,” said Mr Humaidan, in response to a question about Bahraini employment.
“We are currently working to employ 10,000 Bahrainis with our plan set to end in December next year and we are targeting 4,000 university graduates, 2,000 diploma graduates and 2,000 secondary school leavers.
“Bahraini university graduates will not get less than BD400 a month, with us supporting wages monthly with BD200 in the first year and BD150 in the second, while we have kept aside BD1,200 for training each individual.
“Diploma graduates get no less than BD350 and we support the wage with BD100 for one year, while allocating BD1,000 for training each individual, with secondary school graduates getting a BD270 minimum monthly wage with us supporting it with BD50 for a year with training cost per individual at BD800.
“All jobs currently occupied by expatriates are targeted by us and we believe that they could be filled by qualified Bahrainis if proper training is provided, while we are working to get Bahrainis to enter the hotel industry, which we believe has thousands of potential jobs.”
Meanwhile, parliament is set to vote on a government-drafted law, based on a parliamentary proposal, to give retired brigadiers in the security and military sectors special passports in recognition of their service in line with what’s being given to other senior retired government officials and legislators.
In other developments two MPs have requested to join parliament’s Palestinian Support Committee, which currently has only three members.
The two MPs are parliament public utilities and environment affairs committee chairman Adel Al Asoomi and MP Abdulhameed Al Najjar.
The committee is regarded by many MPs as a hardship posting, since members have to repeatedly write statements condemning Israel and it offers little chance for foreign travel.
It is chaired by MP Mohammed Al Ammadi, with Mohammed Al Ahmed serving as vice-chairman and Ahmed Qarrata also a member.
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