The Kingdom of Bahrain is following other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in moving to Bahrainize jobs and reduce the number of foreigners working in the public and private sectors, a move aimed at reducing unemployment, which reached 5.4 percent by the end of 2022, according to official figures from the Council of Ministers.
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Following the government’s policy shift, many companies in Bahrain are now inclined to fire non-Bahraini employees in jobs that are available to nationals, depending on their field of expertise.
Bahrain’s unemployment rate fluctuated between 3.7-4% from 2012 until the pandemic hit, after which it rose to 7.5%. The government has since managed to gradually bring the unemployment rate down to 5.4% and aims to bring it down further to below 3.5%.
According to Bahrain Social Insurance Corporation data for 2022, there are 50,000 people working in the government or public sector and 614,000 working in the private sector. The private sector includes 100,000 Bahrainis and 514,000 foreign workers, most of whom are from Asian countries (mainly India, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Philippines and Pakistan) and some African and Arab countries.
Despite Bahrain’s intention to restructure its government, public sector employment is set to grow by 3 percent from 48,915 in 2021 to 50,375 in 2022. Over the same period, private sector employment for Bahrainis is set to grow from 96,934 to 99,945, an increase of 3.1 percent. A bird’s-eye view of Bahrain’s capital Manama on October 30, 2022. (Credit: REUTERS/HAMAD I MOHAMMED)
Bahrain has taken steps to reduce the number of foreign workers
Recently, Bahrain has taken several steps to reduce the number of foreigners working in the country, who send home about 1.2 billion Bahraini dinars ($3.2 billion) each year, accounting for more than 8 percent of Bahrain’s gross domestic product.
Around 72% of non-Bahraini employees in the private sector, mainly working in the carpentry, plumbing, building, contracting and construction sectors, receive salaries and wages of less than BD200 ($530) per month, while 4% of expatriates working in the private sector receive salaries of more than BD1,000 ($2,700) per month.
The minimum monthly wage for Bahrainis in the private sector is BD350 ($930) for high school graduates and BD450 ($1,200) for university graduates, although the government has raised the minimum wage for some private sector occupations, such as medicine and engineering.
Bahrain has had a long-standing policy of subsidizing the wages of Bahrainis working in the private sector. The country’s labor market regulator charges employers a monthly fee of BD10 ($26.60) for each foreign worker, which is remitted to a labor fund (Tamkeen).
Tamkeen is a Bahraini-originated organization that aims to support the wages, training and reintegration of its citizens, and also supports Bahraini-founded start-ups by paying half the cost of equipment needed.
Over the past few years, members of the Representative Council – the lower house of Bahrain’s parliament – have criticised the government for tolerating a high proportion of foreigners, who made up 52% of the total population of 1.5 million as of 2021.
During negotiations with the government over the 2023-2024 budget in May last year, the Representative Council succeeded in increasing fees paid by employers for foreign workers, in addition to further subsidizing Bahraini wages and employment in the private sector.
“Jobs that Bahrainis are losing out on must be Bahrainized,” Ali Al Dosari, a member of Bahraini parliament, told The Media Line.
“This is not targeted at any particular people or workers. Bahrain is a small market and there are only a limited number of jobs. It is only possible to hire workers from outside Bahrain if there is a shortage of Bahraini workers,” he explained.
During a discussion with the Representative Council, Minister of Education Dr. Mohammed Mubarak Juma confirmed that the percentage of Bahraini employment in the ministry – one of the largest government departments employing non-Bahrainis – had risen to 87 percent. The statement suggested that no teachers or staff would be hired from outside Bahrain, following the policy of other GCC countries to only contract Arab teachers from countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Palestine.
The Civil Service Department also announced a new policy that it will not contract foreign employees if there is a Bahraini national in the same field of expertise. The policy also stipulates that if a foreigner is hired, he or she must be trained to do the same job for the duration of the contract.
“Increasing labor market mobility flexibility, containing public sector wages, and continuing to address the mismatch between skills and labor market needs by providing coordinated and integrated training programs can create job opportunities for Bahrainis in the private sector,” the IMF said in a May 25 statement after IMF officials visited Bahrain from May 9 to 18.
According to Al Dosari, the total number of unemployed people in Bahrain is gradually decreasing, but the pace of hiring needs to continue to increase.
“Most of the unemployed (around 15,000) studied at state expense throughout the academic year, and many received support while at university, and they will not be able to build a life in the country unless they get a job,” he said.
“Many companies around the world are firing employees due to disabilities, use of artificial intelligence, employment restructuring, etc. [unemployed] Al-Dosari added: “The first priority for citizens should be to get a job in their country.”
Abbas Ali, a Bahraini journalist specializing in economic issues, told The Media Line newspaper: “For decades, Bahrainis did not face any problems and there was no talk of foreigners or Bahrainis getting jobs because there was always work for everyone. But since a few years ago, there has been a large influx of foreigners in Bahrain with no accountability.”
Ali said the increase in foreign workers was due to non-Bahraini hiring managers giving preferential treatment to nationals.
“Many of them were found to have fake documents or lacked the experience and qualifications required for employment,” he said. “They were hired simply because they were of the same nationality as the company president, executives and recruiters.”
Amir Suleiman, an Egyptian sound engineer who was working as an employee in Bahrain, was recently fired.
“I had been working in Bahrain for about five years but after 10 Bahrainis were hired as sound engineers, I was fired,” he told The Media Line.
“They may not have the same experience as me in this field, but the company I work for has now decided to Bahrainize employment and there are many Bahrainis doing the same jobs,” he continued. “We went from having 100 non-Bahraini employees in some departments to now having less than 10. They are only employed because there are no Bahraini substitutes in their field of expertise.”
InterNations ranked Bahrain the highest in the region and seventh in the world as a country that foreigners and expatriates would like to live in. The survey covers several aspects, including quality of life, stability, personal finances, working conditions and family life.
The survey stated: “Bahrain has made remarkable progress, with 83% of respondents saying that life in Bahrain is exactly the same as life in their home country, their emotions while in Bahrain are similar to those in their home country, they quickly adapted to life in Bahrain and would like to work there. The only country that performed better in this dimension was Mexico, scoring 85%.”
The Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry has repeatedly opposed the Representative Council’s proposal to limit some jobs to Bahrainis, saying it would violate international labour conventions and could lead to an imbalance in some jobs.
The chamber hopes to take steps towards improving the status of Bahraini workers in the workplace by not only promoting employment due to their Bahraini nationality, but also by helping train and recruit Bahrainis into higher-ranking jobs, an effort supported by the labour fund Tamkeen.
The Bahraini Ministry of Labour has also launched several initiatives to employ Bahrainis in non-essential specialisations, as it is having problems hiring in specialisations where there is a surplus in the labour market, such as law and social sciences.
