Bahrain: Fewer than one in five GCC firms offer on-the-job training to their nationals creating a major “skills gap” that needs to be bridged, according to an international expert.
International Labour Organisation (ILO) deputy regional director Frank Hagemann said that it was important for the Gulf’s labour market to focus more on training.
“We need more on-the-job training – our figures show that only 17 per cent of firms in the GCC offer it against a global average of 37pc,” he said.
Disparity
“In Saudi Arabia, 40pc of graduates come from humanities or Islamic studies, while only 4pc are engineers – this needs to be readjusted.
“The GCC also needs to foster entrepreneurship and self-employment among its nationals.”
Mr Hagemann was speaking at a session titled “The Opportunities and Challenges of the GCC Skills Gap” at the first Bahrain Bay Forum, organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies at the Four Seasons Hotel Bahrain Bay.
The two-day event, which concluded yesterday, brought together global decision-makers to discuss economic development against the backdrop of regional insecurity under the theme Middle East: Regional Security and Business Opportunity.
Mr Hagemann said that the GCC’s labour issues stemmed from a “very high reliance on migrant labour”, “relatively high unemployment” and “low female participation in the labour market”.
“More than 80pc of the private sector is made up of expats, while in countries such as Kuwait and Qatar this is 96 and 98pc respectively,” he said.
“Youth unemployment is 50pc above the global average and though better than some North African countries, it is still a real problem.
“Women, despite being well educated, represent less than 30pc of the labour market in the GCC compared with a 50 pc global average, which again is a big gap.”
Mr Hagemann criticised GCC governments for not providing the “right incentives” to employ their nationals.
“The consequence is that there is high reliance on low productive, low wage labour and in turn, the private sector remains relatively unattractive to nationals,” he said.
Threat
“Migrant labour endure substandard working conditions and a dependency driven employee relationship on sponsorship with difficulty in obtaining mobility being yet another issue.
“Declining oil and gas revenues could also be a severe threat on the employment of nationals,” the expert added.
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