Jameel bin Muhammad Ali Humaidan, Labour and Social Development Minister and Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA)’s Chairman of the Board of Directors chaired LMRA’s Board of Directors meeting.

Nouf Abdulrahman Jamsheer, Chief Executive Officer of the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) attended the meeting.

Humaidan stressed the importance of continuing to work to accommodate developments and changes in the labour market to meet its needs through the National Labor Market Plan 2023-2026.

The national plan 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, which is aligned with Bahrain’s development plans including the Economic Recovery Plan, Bahrain Economic Vision 2030.

The minister pointed out that the efforts will continue to monitor the labour market through joint inspection campaigns, covering shops, work sites, and labour gathering places.    

The board reviewed the memorandum submitted by the head of the audit committee submitted to the board of directors, the audited financial report for the year 2022, as well as the CEO’s annual report for the same year; and approved them all.

They also reviewed the estimated budget for the year 2023 and the authority’s upcoming plans.

The LMRA CEO presented a comprehensive report on the achievements and development of services provided to citizens, business owners, and workers.

She highlighted the efforts and programmes of the LMRA and the results that were achieved during the first half of the current year, and priority projects.

Jamsheer stressed the keenness to further develop the LMRA’s services and procedures on an ongoing basis.

The Memorandum of Understanding between the LMRA and the Social Insurance Organization (SIO) regarding wages of workers in the private sector aims at ensuring the accuracy of data related to actual wages of workers in the private sector, reviewing and matching all paid wages with the insured wage, and alerting employers of salary differences, she said.

The LMRA CEO noted that upgrading the wages protection system included creating a feature for updating employee wages and a feature for paying wages in the expatriate labor system, in cooperation with the banking sector.

All employers are required 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 said, explaining that these two steps contribute to verifying the employer’s commitment to paying workers’ wages on time.