Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): The snowball effect is a metaphorical term that describes an event that starts from an initial stage that does not affect much and then accumulates and worsens until it becomes larger and more effective. Letting the snowball grow, roll and accumulate leads to a serious danger as it will become more dangerous and painful when it falls from the top of a slope of a snowy mountain, destroying everything that stands in its way. However, the government in our country does not recognize this theory or this metaphor.

Just a day after a conference organized by political societies and General Federation of Bahrain Trade Union on unemployment in Bahrain and the need to Bahrainize jobs, the government responded by publishing a labor market plan for the next four years.

The government plan did not present any figures for the current rate of unemployment in Bahrain, nor did it propose the most important solution demanded by citizens of all walks of life: "Bahrainization of jobs." The announced plan is a practical response to popular demands and to the conference held by the political societies, declaring "no Bahrainization of jobs".

It is a construction plan that can be described as irresponsible and that the one who developed and adopted it as well is an irresponsible person, as the plan has nothing new but sugarcoated phrases that will not employ a Bahraini and will never solve the problem of unemployment during the next four years.

The most important paper presented during the conference of societies on unemployment and Bahrainization was the paper of the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Union, entitled "Bahrainization is a decision". The representative of the Union, Hassan Al-Halwaji, said that the problem of unemployment needs a clear political decision to formulate the necessary laws and decisions in order to make it successful, pointing out that the open economy policy in the Bahraini market has harmed the labor market.

In a statement by Minister of Labour Jameel Hmaidan on the government's adoption of a plan for the labor market, he said that the plan "contains several chapters that contribute to reducing the cost difference between Bahraini and foreign workers, and creating more job opportunities for citizens in the private sector." His words are impractical. They are just empty promises that Bahrainis have been accustomed to hearing since the independence to date.

There is a large number of unemployed people, thousands of whom are university graduates, while the government and merchants continue their policy of favoring foreigners.

As of February 13, the number of expatriate workers with valid work permits reached 495,608 and the number of jobs occupied by these workers is 2,655 diverse professions. This is without counting Bahrain's thousands of unregulated workers, which amount to thousands.
Until May of this year, the number of unemployed Bahrainis registered in the records of the Ministry of Labor was about 14,032, and this number is growing every day with no prospects for a solution soon.

Also, the data of the Social Insurance Organization for the first quarter of this year 2023 shows that the number of new insured, who are employed in the private sector, is only 2090 Bahrainis. Meanwhile, the number of newly insured foreigners reached 18,934, almost ten times that of Bahrainis, which clearly means that the previous government's plans failed miserably and distorted the labor market.
How, then, can we trust the new plan which follows the same path of the old one, namely the rejection of the idea of restricting large sectors of jobs to Bahrainis?

The result is clear; the government ignores the unemployment problem, which grows like a giant snowball, and if it descends above everyone, the government has the solution, as usual, it will paint protests and complaints about unemployment as a security problem.

It will then leave the Ministry of Interior and the intelligence services deal with it in the language of repression, oppression and filling prisons once again. This is the security mind adopted by the government in Bahrain, and it seems that it has never and will never change.

Arabic Version