Shura Council unanimously rejects bill to impose limits on foreign work permits

TDT | Manama

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Caps on foreign work permits have been thrown out by a unanimous Shura Council vote, which rejected a bill to force a national ceiling and kept Bahrain’s labour market law on its current flexible footing.

The bill, already passed by Parliament, would have obliged the national labour market plan to carry a fixed upper limit on the number of work permits the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) can issue in a given period, replacing wording that the plan ‘may’ include such a ceiling with wording that it ‘must’ do so.

The Services Committee, backed by the government, the LMRA and the Ministry of Labour, had urged members to keep the current wording.

Procedures

Committee rapporteur Talal Al Mannai told the chamber the proposal shackles the authority’s discretion and weighs down procedures without achieving its aim’, adding that the current permissive text “acts as a safety valve that keeps the law flexible and keeps the market able to adjust in times of need”.

He warned that if the state is obliged to fix a national ceiling for each four-year plan, those drawing it up are likely to raise that ceiling as a precaution, turning the rule into a formal duty with little real effect.

The committee’s report said the law had been written to let the LMRA react quickly to swings in demand and sudden shocks, such as health crises or abrupt slowdowns, without waiting for long changes in primary legislation.

Response

Locking a hard cap into the law for the whole life of each national plan, it argued, would leave the authority with less room to respond if labour needs rise in key sectors mid-cycle.

Shura member Dr Ali Al Haddad told colleagues the bill “does not achieve the purpose for which it was drafted; it carries adverse effects that would restrict the flexibility of the executive and weaken its ability to keep pace with rapid changes in the labour market”.

He added that the change risked sending “unsettling messages to investors and reducing the appeal of the investment environment, with negative consequences for sustainable jobs for citizens”.

Call

Shura member Dalal Al Zayed backed the committee’s call to reject the bill and pointed to Article 5 of the Labour Market Regulation Law, which requires the LMRA to consult other bodies and the public before issuing measures linked to the labour market.

“This provision was not written by chance; it was put there so that no single body takes decisions on the labour market and the economy on its own, and so that balanced decisions are taken after consultation with the parties concerned and with the public,” she said.

Al Zayed also said work permits should not be treated in the same way for every sector.

Rules

Some fields, she argued, can bear tighter rules because there are qualified Bahrainis who can be brought in, while other areas suffer from a shortage of specialist skills or involve jobs that citizens are reluctant to take.

In such sectors, she warned, a fixed ceiling might push some employers towards unlawful methods of recruitment or persuade them to scale down or move parts of their work if they feel their room to hire is too narrow.

In a written opinion, the LMRA backed the government’s stance that the bill should be reconsidered, saying the present framework already allows ceilings to be brought in by executive decisions when needed, while leaving space to adjust policy as supply and demand change.

Approach

The Ministry of Labour took a similar line, saying national numerical caps suit countries that deal with very large inflows of migrant workers, while Bahrain bases its approach on actual labour needs and seeks to give Bahraini workers an edge through training and qualification.

After yesterday’s debate, the Shura Council agreed with the Services Committee and refused the amendment in principle. It has sent the bill back to Parliament for reconsideration.