Bahrain's Labour Fund Tamkeen has announced that since its establishment it has supported more than 41,000 local youth in the private sector through its career development programmes and creation of job opportunities in the kingdom.

 

Outlining its strategic priorities for 2025, Tamkeen said it will focus on enhancing the competitiveness of Bahrainis in the private sector, equipping their talent with the skills required to achieve career development in the private sector, and prioritizing growth, digital transformation and sustainability of enterprises.

 

The Labour fund pointed out that its key achievements in 2024 were mainly thanks to its focus on the key pillars of employment support, career development support and enterprise support.

 

Speaking at a press conference on the eve of Bahrain's National Day, Tamkeen CEO Maha Abdulhameed Mofeez said: "2024 marked an unprecedented achievement for Tamkeen since inception, which entailed the employment and career development of 41,000 Bahrainis in the private sector. This was achieved by channeling support programs to accomplish key objectives, including creating quality job opportunities, establishing new employment pathways in partnership with the private sector, and training and qualifying national talent to enhance their career development prospects." 

 

"These efforts align with Tamkeen’s commitment to sustainable economic growth in the Kingdom of Bahrain to implement national development plans, most notably the Government Action Plan 2023-2026 and the National Labour Market Plan 2023-2026 in collaboration with Team Bahrain," she noted. 

 

Alya Alaali, the Chief Strategy and Data Analytics Officer, said Tamkeen's strategic priorities for 2025 were in line with its continued commitment to improving the labor market ecosystem and facilitating the private sector to increase the impact of its support programs. 

 

Meanwhile, Tamkeen’s Executive Director of Programs and Partnerships Development Ali Hasan reaffirmed that since the launch of its programs in November last year, Tamkeen has successfully created employment and career development opportunities for 41,000 Bahrainis in private sector enterprises."

 

"This includes support for over 15,200 Bahrainis through programs that facilitate their employment in the labor market, as well as supporting more than 25,700 Bahrainis through programs aimed at skill enhancement and career development, and over 8,500 enterprises through programs promoting growth and productivity," noted Hasan.

 

In addition, an overview was presented of the key performance indicators achieved by Tamkeen during 2024, which showed that the percentage of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) reached 51% of the total supported through the enterprise support programs, as well as comprised 54% of the enterprises that received financing support. 

 

He pointed out that the percentage of women that benefited from the various employment support programs stood at over 40%. 

 

"As for professional certification support, there was a growth rate of 88% compared to the previous year, reflecting the development of skills and career opportunities. Additionally, the average increase in wages as part of the Wage Increment Program reached BD80," he added. 

 

Internally, Tamkeen has prioritized improving its operations to achieve excellence by leveraging innovation and digital transformation. 

 

This includes providing a fully integrated digital customer experience, eliminating the need to visit service branches. 

 

Key initiatives also include implementing open banking services for automatic verification of IBANs, introducing electronic cheques for beneficiaries of enterprise support programs, enhancing data integration with partners, and deploying other advanced solutions to streamline and simplify service delivery.

 

To ensure the efficiency of support and its allocation to eligible beneficiaries, Tamkeen said it has developed and implemented a comprehensive plan to strengthen shared responsibility in safeguarding public funds. 

 

This includes intensifying monitoring efforts, enhancing collaboration with relevant entities, launching a whistleblowing policy, granting Tamkeen employees the authority of Judicial Officers, conducting more than 6,000 inspection visits in 2024 to beneficiaries’ and enterprises, and diversifying whistleblowing channels. 

 

These channels include a dedicated reporting webpage on the website with full confidentiality, a hotline, an email address, and continuous communication with clients during and after the support period to detect potential violations, in which 54.4 thousand beneficiaries were contacted during 2024.

 

In 2025, Tamkeen will intensify its monitoring efforts, which will include increasing the number of inspections to 15,000 visits for individuals benefiting from wage support programs, in addition to 4,000 visits to enterprises benefiting from the various enterprise support programs.-TradeArabia News Service