26000 Bahrainis appointed

Manama : Around 26,000 Bahrainis were permanently employed in 10 months of 2015, revealed Labour and Social Development Minister Jameel Humaidan recently.

“The Ministry is sparing no efforts to maintain safe unemployment rates in Bahrain,” Humaidan said, adding that employment figures were generally comforting during the four quarters of last year.

The Minister’s statements came in reply to a parliamentary query submitted by MP Mohammed Milad, regarding the national strategy to develop Bahraini employees’ capabilities to compete in the labour market.

Humaidan clarified that “the Ministry, through its employment programmes, was able to maintain safe unemployment rates, which stabilised at 3.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2015 with 2,832 unemployed citizens. “Until October 2015, a total of 25,578 Bahraini jobseekers were employed with permanent work contracts in many fields of the private sector.” 

Speaking about one of the various citizens’ employment programmes that are initiated by the Ministry, he said, “The second Bahrainis rehabilitation and employment project provides jobseekers with many services. In case secondary school graduates are working for BD270, the Ministry supports each one of them with an additional BD50 for a whole year. BD800 is allocated for each employee’s training fees, if required by the employer.”

“The programme also instructs that minimum monthly wages for Bahraini diploma degree holders is BD350 and the Ministry would also provide him/her with a monthly allowance of BD100 for a whole year. The allocations increase depending on the qualifications of the employee or jobseeker,” he elaborated.

This matter would be discussed in details during the next Parliament weekly session on Tuesday.