Labour Minister chairs LMRA’s Board of Directors meeting

07-08-2023

Under the chairmanship of H.E. Mr. Jameel bin Mohammed Ali Humaidan, Minister of Labour and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Labour Market Regulatory Authority, chaired LMRA’s Board of Directors meeting, in the presence of Ms. Nouf Abdul Rahman Jamsheer, CEO of the Authority and other board members. Humaidan affirmed the need to intensify work that links the programs and plans of the LMRA to the National Labour Market Plan 2023-2026. This mission aims to develop the labour market, ensure its growth and stability, enhance economic competitiveness and attract foreign direct investment, thus contributing to the creation of more sustainable job opportunities for citizens. On this occasion, the minister stressed the importance of continuing work at a higher pace to keep up with the developments and changes in the labour market to meet its needs in response to the development plans of the Kingdom of Bahrain, particularly in view of the economic recovery plan, and the Kingdom's economic vision that aims to achieve competitiveness, justice and sustainability. He also pointed to the continuation of efforts to achieve control in the labour market through extensive campaigns and inspection visits to various market entities and places where workers gather in various governorates, in cooperation with the relevant government agencies, especially the Ministry of Interior. The Board of Directors reviewed and approved the audited financial report for 2022, together with the annual report of the Executive Management for the same year. They also covered the estimated budget for 2023 and the authority’s future plans. For her part, H.E. Ms. Nouf Abdul Rahman Jamsheer, CEO of the Labour Market Authority, presented an integrated report on the various achievements and the level of development of services provided to citizens, employers and workers. She also talked about the efforts and programs of the authority, the results achieved during the first half of 2023 and the priority projects. Jamsheer discussed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Labour Market Regulatory Authority and the Social Insurance Organization on the wages of workers in the private sector. This MoU aims to ensure the validity of data related to real and actual wages of workers in the private sector, review and match all wages paid with the insured wage, and alert employers about salary differences in both sides. The LMRA’s CEO also pointed out that the development of the Wages Protection System helps to establish a feature to "update employees' wages" and a feature to "pay wages" in the expatriate labour system, in cooperation with the banking sector. Accordingly, all employers will be obligated to pay workers' wages through the expatriate labour system, provided that the authority's role is limited to passing the request for payment of wages to banks. She indicated that these two steps contribute to verifying the employer's commitment to pay workers' wages on time.