DOHA: The Ministry of Labour’s job nationalisation drive in the private sector does not seem to have met with much success this year as reflected by the figures it released yesterday.
The ministry gave approval to private companies to recruit 18,854 foreign workers in the first 10 months of 2012, but could help only 781 Qatari nationals get private jobs.
The government sector still remains the largest employer of the Qatari workforce. Out of 3,259 Qatari job-seekers, some 2,478, or a huge 76 percent, were provided employment in the state sector between January and October of this year.
According to the ministry figures released through the Qatar News Agency (QNA) ahead of the National Day, of the 781 Qatari citizens who were employed in the private sector, a vast majority (632) were women and the number of men was only 149.
But the ministry reiterated in its statement that it is committed to pushing more and more nationals into the private sector.
The ministry, meanwhile, said it has suggested amendments to the sponsorship system and the proposal has been forwarded to the General Secretariat
of Development Planning (GSDP).
The ministry gave no further details of the changes it has suggested to the sponsorship rules, but said a working team had been set up to review the sponsorship law and study its impact on the local job market and an extensive report had been prepared.
The report has been referred to the GSDP which will be studying it along with the Ministry of Interior to take appropriate steps.
The ministry statement said it received 4,490 complaints from workers in the first 10 months this year, and added that it resolved most of them.
The construction industry, which is the largest employer of private sector workforce, accounted for a large chunk of the complaints (almost 47 percent), with complaints from areas like trading, wholesale and automobile repair facilities having a 12 percent share in the total.
The ministry approved only 71.4 percent of the requests it received from companies to recruit foreign workers (between January and October of this year). Out of 26,419 requests, only
18,854 were cleared.
The most disappointing statistics were regarding expatriate women on relatives’ sponsorship seeking work permits from the ministry. The ministry received 8,779 requests from such women for work permits between January and October 2012 and only 3,533 permits were issued—the percentage being a little more than 40.
As for inspection of worksites, the ministry said more than 38,000 routine and surprise checks were conducted to ensure their compliance with the labor law, but divulged no details about the nature of violations or action taken against erring
employers.
The ministry said it would find nationality-wise presence of workers in existing jobs to know the increase.
The Peninsula
