Opportunities open up in Bahrain for Bangladeshis
Bangladeshi migrant workers in Bahrain are seeing fresh employment opportunities amid the coronavirus pandemic, as some local employers there, especially in the construction sector, are opening up jobs for such workers.
Although nominal in number, the opportunities came as a beacon of light for the Bangladeshi workers, many of who had been facing hardship due to job losses in current situation.
The Bangladesh embassy in Manama has been trying to assess and meet the employers' demands after communicating with unemployed workers, and mediating between them and the employers, said an official at the embassy.
Unlike other Gulf Cooperation Council countries, foreign workers in Bahrain, home to about 1,50,000 Bangladeshi workers, have the opportunity to change their sponsors and employers by obtaining "flexi permit" from the country's Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA).
In May, LMRA informed Bangladesh mission that some 7,000-8,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers have lost their jobs amid an economic shutdown.
Following this, the embassy communicated with some local training centres aiming to facilitate new set of skills training and re-employment for such workers in different sectors, said the mission official.
On July 9, the embassy issued a circular via social media to this end, and attached a form with it to input necessary information of expectant Bangladeshi workers who were in need of job.
Within a week, some 800 workers responded and about 300-400 of them sought job opportunities, said the official, wishing not to be named.
He said they also collected several circulars looking for foreign workers in recent weeks and conveyed the information among Bangladeshi workers, while also providing data of the workers to the recruiters.
Sheikh Mohammed Tauhidul Islam, labour welfare counselor at Bangladesh Embassy in Manama, said a number of companies run by Bangladeshis work on sub-contract basis in Bahrain and they mainly supply workers to different construction sites.
"Recently, such companies have been talking about workers' shortage," he added.
Tauhidul said present market demand suggests the number of people affected by the pandemic could be lesser in Bahrain than what was estimated earlier.
However, it is still too early to come up with such a remarks, he told this correspondent via WhatsApp.
He said construction and cleaning are the sectors where maximum Bangladeshi workers are employed.
About 70 percent of Bangladeshi workers in Bahrain are low-paid workers in the construction sector, according to the Bangladesh mission.
The official said around 5,000-10,000 Bangladeshis had been involved in the hospitality industry. Most of them faced the coronavirus fallout since there was no activity in the sector in past few months.
Currently, all kinds of worker recruitment from foreign countries remain halted in Bahrain due to the pandemic, while recruitment of workers from Bangladesh has remained suspended for more than two years, said the embassy official.
As per Bahrain government's estimate, the country hosts around 55,000 undocumented workers. Of them, more than 80 percent are estimated to be Bangladeshis.
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