Bahrain Employment and Career News
Bahrain Labour Minister resents minimum wage policy
The Labour Minister in Bahrain has warned against adopting a minimum wage policy for private sector, and said that it would cause serious problems to the economy.
Addressing the Lower House during its discussion of amendments of Labour Law, Majeed Al Alawi, said that fixing a minimum wage in an expatriates-dominant sector would be dangerous to Bahraini economy, and requested the MPs not to support such a suggestion, which was put forward by few representatives and supported the Parliamentary Services Committee.
Al Alawi said that the wages of any Bahraini national should not be less than BD300. However, such a rule cannot be made compulsory as such a policy would mean that some companies would have to go bankrupt.
The Minister has been a strong supporter of Bahrainization, the process to ease Bahraini nationals into jobs held by expatriates. He led the Gulf movement by labor officials to impose a residence cap of five or six years on unskilled labourers, as a measure to ensure that the demography of six GCC countries is not further affected by the presence of foreigners.
Alawi said “We cannot accept the article added by the Services Committee to the Labour Law draft, which covers bonuses and salaries by National Salary Council. We do not have such a council, and cannot have one, as its task is to fix a minimum wage, which is unacceptable.”
Posted on 17/3/2009
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