BAHRAIN CITIZENS TO REPLACE EXPATS

I have been in the GCC for 10 years and this sort of news keeps coming out in Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi, all the time.  It hasn't happened yet .

The furthest along are Kuwait and then Oman.   Eventually localization will increase.  Keep in mind that it doesn't mean that there will be zero expats but instead, what you will end up with is expats at the lower end e.g. labor plus expats at the very high end e.g. top management, specialists etc.  For average white collar expats in the middle, without hard to find skills, it will get tougher and tougher, yes.   

Right now, there are expats at every layer.   Compared to other countries e.g. Singapore, where you also have a LOT of expats there but in the categories as I mentioned above.  The lower category is to make up for labor shortages and the higher category is to ensure skill transfer.   These two will continue to remain and this is the case in the developed world as well.   The middle layer will get smaller and smaller and will eventually disappear. 

What's happening now is that restrictions on expats continue to increase in professions where you have locals available.  For example, forget about working in HR if you are not a Bahraini or at the very least, an Arabic speaker.  Some non-Arabic speaking expats do work there but expect that in some years, they will refuse HR visas to non-locals like Saudi has done (still, some expats still work in HR there but on different visa professions).   Another area is banking where most of the staff is Bahraini with some expats at management level and above. 

Whether it happens in 3 years or 10 years, we shall see.  But practically speaking, I don't think it will happen in three years.

Thank you for your thought. It's just that recently, my employer wants to hire a new expat but the application for new work permit will be postponed for 3 weeks. And we need to post the job for bahrainis only. If we do not find a good applicant, we can proceed with the application for the expat.

So in this situation, I think in the near future there will be less expat professionals as they want nationalisation in GCC.

This delay is due to Covid for new visas - because a lot of people here lost their jobs.  If you are NOT in Bahrain then the application is delayed so that the employer can find an employee from people who are in Bahrain.  Those people could be locals or expats (who are already here).    It has nothing to do with localization of jobs and everything to do with Covid job losses as I mentioned.