Bidiversity

Young people entering careers they ignored before will push up the percentage of local Bahrain employees in the country, experts declared yesterday. The nationwide Bahrainisa-tion level has fallen to 25.3 per cent, from 34.2pc in 2002, according to a skills gap study commissioned by Tamkeen (earlier called the Labour Fund).

But this is expected to go up substantially in the next few years, with more and more Bahraini graduates looking to go into areas where there had been less interest before.

The total number of people employed in Bahrain increased to 531,249 this year, compared to 292,536 in 2002, delegates heard.

The number of Bahrainis employed in 2002 was 100,007, while the figure now is 134,468, according to the study, by the Allen Consulting Group of Australia.

It says the number of non-Bahrainis employed in 2002 was 192,529, which has soared to 396,781.

“Almost all 11 sectors of the Bahrain economy considered in this study are likely to experience significant skills gaps in the future,” said Allen Consulting Group director Stephen Bartos, while presenting the findings.

In terms of specific skills gaps identified, key findings are across all sectors, but particularly in trade and tourism and hospitality, there is a strong demand for skills such as communication, customer relationship and planning.

“One of the important findings, in the context of the Economic Vision 2030, which recognises the need for Bahrain to link to global trade and information highways, is relative to the small proportion of employees in the information and communications technology sector and the projected significant future skills gaps anticipated in the sector (such as technical know-how and numeracy skills).”

Creativity and innovation are important under any scenario, but in the event global conditions were to deteriorate they will be even more critical, said Mr Bartos.

The development of future skills strategies for Bahrain should aim to enhance rather than constrain labour market diversity.

“However, given the large number of skills gaps identified in this study to date, the selection of sectors in which to target investment to develop skills will be primarily a matter of policy choice.”

The study, assisted by Ernst&Young in Bahrain, surveyed businesses, employees, educational institutions and new graduates to provide detailed data on the anticipated skills gaps in the next five years.