35,000 jobs by year-end: Labour Ministry 

The Ministry of Labour aims to provide 35,000 job opportunities this year, according to a statement issued by Minister of Labour, Dr Mahad bin Said bin Ali Baawin, at a press conference yesterday.

The press conference titled 'A flexible labour market and empowered national cadres' discussed the Ministry’s achievements in the previous year and its plans for 2023.

According to Baawin, the ministry provided 45,026 job opportunities in 2022, a figure which exceeded the ministry's previous goal of 35,000. The job opportunities resulted from direct employment, substitution and training initiatives, of which almost 53 per cent were in the private sector (23,690) and 47 per cent in the public sector (21,336).

Additionally, the ministry also reported 35,377 opportunities in the private sector as a result of the employee rotation scheme.

This year, the ministry, according to Baawin, intends to provide 35,000 opportunities -- 14,000 through direct employment and substitution in the private sector, and 10,000 in the public sector, while 5,000 opportunities will be provided through training initiatives (workplace and on-the-job training), 2,000 to the public human resources development sector via substitution, 2,000 from “industry initiatives'', and 2,000 vocational opportunities for general diploma holders in the private sector.

The Ministry has achieved 21 per cent of this goal so far.

Moreover, the number of active job security fund beneficiaries reached 13,453 by the end of 2022. The fund was first created in 2020 to support those affected by terminations. However, according to Bawain, the fund also assisted employees whose contracts had expired until they found new employment.

Labour Under-Secretary, Shaikh Nasr bin Amer al Hosni, shared that the ministry is in the process of introducing new labour regulations.

“Many sectors were affected in the first period after the pandemic by a lack of manpower, which disrupted the supply and demand of the labour market. The real remedy is to create a parallel market that provides varying labour needs, for example, hiring workers on an hourly or monthly basis. This will not require any capital investment or initial investment from service seekers. The amount will be paid only when needed. This will solve a major problem in the issue of recruiting private labour."

“This will offer a higher labour quality, as it will be followed by supply companies. And those companies will be fully responsible for the supply and transport of the labourers. We are currently working on the regulations, and there will be online applications through which people could hire employees on an hourly or seasonal basis,” he added.

Additionally, the ministry also discussed the role it plays in sustaining job stability within companies at risk of financial failure.

“Before finalising the procedures of any national manpower in any company, the company submits an application to the Ministry of Labour, after which a special committee of representatives from the Ministry of Labour, the Workers Union, and other government bodies meets," the Labour Under-Secretary said.

“The committee does not only discuss administrative matters but also resorts to reviewing the financial statements of these companies to make sure that there is indeed a financial failure,” he said.

According to the Under-Secretary, the committee resorts to various solutions to ensure the safety of jobs, such as loan rescheduling.

Furthermore, the ministry highlighted some of its most notable initiatives in 2022 which included, training and equipping job seekers within health specialities to pass professional classification tests, providing opportunities for veterinary technology graduates, a joint initiative with the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) to raise skill levels in companies, a support initiative to replace speech and language specialists in disability centres, and a joint initiative with the TRA to organise postal services.