Hi everybody, I am an Engineer working for the Govt. of Bahrain, in one of their Ministries, I want to warn the people who are interested in coming to Bahrain on the discriminative & exploitative practices employed by the government with its expat employees.
- The salary & allowances which the Govt pays to the expats is much below the Market rates and strictly non revisable.
- The salary levels are much lower than what it pays its Bahraini employees.
- what is worse is that once an expat takes up a job he is pegged at this position till he leaves(I know a guy who works here for the last 25 years for the same salary). The reason provided is that the expats on contract. U might wonder why these guys are stuck here, the simple reason is that once u take up a job with the Ministries your opportunities of finding another one dries up.
- IMHO if you are on contract you should get paid more than the regular employees, but here in Bahrain it is the reverse, they just want to fleece you.
- Expats employees do not get any training or skills development training, whereas the locals get atleast 5% of the manhours allocated to training. But u are expected to be aware of what is happening & master of your field to retain your job.
- Expats are never considered for any promotions and even if they are promoted in case of emergencies or where there is no local available, they are mostly stuck with the same pay.
- Increments are a strict NO NO, The discrimination can be best illustrated with a recent event, All the staff of the Govt. of Bahrain have received a revision in their payscale by upgrading them to receive a 15% hike to tackle the spiralling inflation, except the expats. I am right now receiving a salary less than the local trainee targeted towards my position (I have about 10 years experience).
- Even though they promise u that Medical is covered it is given in the public hospitals, where the attention is really poor. due to the long waiting list. You are left shelling out a huge amount to the private hospitals or incurring additional expenses in securing the insurance cover.
- The salary what you will receive is totally unreflective of the ground realities of hyper inflation, spiralling prices and the discriminative attitude.
- You might have recently read that Bahrain is thinking of locking up the bachelor expats in secluded townships - reason they are dangerous, which as u also might know does not have an iota of truth in it.
So my friends, if u still want to come and work in Bahrain, especially in the Government be sure you negotiate to cover for the above ground realies and risks, as you might be locked up in the god forsaken job forever and after all no job is unattractive, provided you are sufficiently compensated.
Cheers,
Sanj
