BAHRAIN aims to empower its citizens and make them ‘the first choice’ for employers in the labour market.
An ambitious plan unveiled yesterday also aims to create 20,000 jobs for Bahrainis and hone the skills of 10,000 young talents every year until 2024.
Labour and Social Development Minister Jameel Humaidan said, in a Press conference, that the plan includes review of labour fees and a new Tamkeen strategy to upskill the Bahraini workforce.
“The new strategy aims to boost economic growth, create promising job opportunities and make citizens the first choice in the labour market by strengthening partnership between the private and public sectors,” said Mr Humaidan.
“The aim is to employ 20,000 Bahrainis and train 10,000 annually until 2024.
“Work will begin on implementing initiatives of the national labour market reform plan (2021-2023), which are based on motivating Bahrainis to turn to the private sector and restructuring incentives for employment.
“Additionally, efforts will be on to review labour fees and reduce the cost gap between a Bahraini and foreign worker – again, to make the citizen the preferred choice for employment.”
He added that Tamkeen will launch a package of new programmes to hone the skills of citizens.
“The wage support scheme will be developed to raise the competitiveness of the Bahraini citizen. Quality programmes will be provided for institutions that contribute to employment of new graduates. Percentage of Bahrainisation will be increased in administrative and senior positions, and training programmes in institutions will be linked,” added the minister.
He said 20,859 Bahrainis have been employed in 5,912 establishments this year. A total of 25,000 jobs were targeted as part of the national employment programme, which is in its second edition this year.
The total number of those trained under the scheme reached 9,584 as of Saturday (Oct 30), he added.
Youth and Sports Affairs Minister Aymen Almoayed said there will be new initiatives under the Hope Fund which will help promising Bahraini talents to turn entrepreneurs and contribute to the nation’s growth.
“Through the fund, we aim to motivate youngsters to create and innovate in their projects,” said Mr Almoayed.
“The focus will be to hone the skills of young talents in trade and commerce.
“We are glad that more than 600 companies were set up by the youth in less than three months. We currently have 600 applications to set up businesses, and we are sure we will get hundreds or thousands more in the coming months.
“The performance indicators of Hope Fund are reassuring.”
The GDN reported in October last year that the Hope Fund set up by His Majesty King Hamad aims to support the younger generation, describing them as the ‘best asset’.
It is supervised by His Majesty’s representative for humanitarian work and youth affairs Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
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