Where there are no Bhutanese

The members of the private sector have once again questioned the logic behind the HR policy that mandates them to employ more Bhutanese.

During the private sector development meet recently, it was submitted that while the private sector is in support of recruiting more national workforce, finding suitable candidates for technical and professional posts remain a challenge.

Representatives of the private sector said that although it is not much of a problem finding Bhutanese nationals in the non-technical areas such as office administration, finding technical professionals is still a huge challenge.

Therefore, when private companies fail to find appropriate technical professionals in the local job market, they approach the labour ministry for permission to recruit expatriates, mostly from India.

Members submitted that the private sector faces many difficulties in finding appropriate people on time. And they are disappointed that their plea goes unheeded by the labour ministry most times.

“Even where there are no nationals to take up the jobs, for instance in pharmacy, the labour ministry doesn’t approve the permit for foreign workers,” said a representative of the private sector.

The present employment rules restrict the number of foreign workers in the private sector and in some cases do not allow extension of work permits, say entrepreneurs. They say the labour ministry needs to study the matter deeply.

“In genuine cases where the private entities, even after resorting to all means, fail to find Bhutanese nationals, the ministry must make exceptions,” said a businessman.

The members of the Private Sector Development Committee (PSDC) said the labour ministry needs to support private entities to allow recruiting the required number of foreign workers or in extending the work permits till such time Bhutanese nationals are available for such jobs in the market.

As a long-term solution, Bhutan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) submitted that the ministry needs to conduct extensive study in collaboration with the private agencies to understand the requirement of human resources in respective job categories in different sectors.

“Based on statistics, the labour ministry needs to prepare an employment programme that will provide required skills so that the people graduating from such courses shall find job easily in the market,” said a BCCI official.

The PSDC members highlighted that currently there is a huge mismatch in the Bhutanese job market between jobseekers and the skills required.

The chairperson of the Construction Association of Bhutan, Ugyen Tshechub, said that although there are a plenty of graduates in the market for administrative positions, there are no technical graduates which is why private firms have to rely on expatriate workers.

“We are in need of mining engineers these days due to the boom in the mining sector, but even recently there were no graduates with the required qualification,” he said.

According to the National Human Resources Development Policy, between 2009 and 2020, Bhutan will face human resource deficiency of vocationally trained civil, mechanical, and electrical engineers.

While construction and mining sectors have seen major growth in the past few years, according to the National Labour Force Survey 2010, the percentage of persons employed are the lowest in these two sectors. The mining sector employs only 0.3 percent of the population while the construction sector employs only 0.8 percent.

By Pushkar Chhetri