‘Skill development need of the hour’

Manama : Last year saw a record US$ 733 million Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flowing into Bahrain, estimated to generate 2,800 new jobs over the next two years, revealed Khalid Al Rumaihi, the CEO of Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB).

 “We need to make sure our nationals have a successful chance of capturing a large portion of those jobs,’’ he said while speaking on skills required by Bahraini students to grab job opportunities, at the Employability Summit 2018 organized by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI) and Bahrain Polytechnic.

 The Economy of Bahrain is moving quickly on diversification with growth being positive and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) growing. “What’s the use if we create all of this and don’t have the right skills?’’ asked Khalid Al Rumaihi.

 Developed countries are concerned with the loss of jobs due to job disruption in which technology is taking over the manual workforce. The older generation will be difficult to reskill as advances in technology are the prominent cause of job disruption. 

“Disruption changes the nature of jobs, it happened during the industrial revolution, it’s very likely to happen now,’’ said Khalid Al Rumaihi. 

“Bahrain is going to witness a very complex and ever-changing job market in the near future,” he added while assuring that since 70 per cent of the population in the Middle East is under the age of 30, the issues of job disruption will not be a threat.  The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a $1.5 trillion market and is expected to grow to $2 trillion by 2020, among which Bahrain is the fastest growing economy.

In 2017, Bahrain saw a record 3.6 per cent growth in the overall economy of the country and a 4.8 per cent growth in the non-oil sector. The fastest growing sectors are private healthcare and private education growing at 10 per cent on an annual basis.

“There will be more privatization that will attract different sources of capital,” the EDB CEO adding that the country is moving to a new economic model. “The demands of the job market is going to require skills dramatically different from we have right now,” he added.

 At 92 per cent, Bahrain has one of the highest literacy rates in the Arab world, and education sector needs to ensure a qualified workforce is graduating from schools to meet the required job description.