As a son of a current Gulf Air employee, I just find myself so attached to the ongoing fiasco. I couldn’t help but wonder as to the credibility of the on going talks of the “over employment” policy Gulf Air has practiced, and now overwhelmed by the number of it’s both on ground staff and it’s cabin and cockpit crew leaving it very little room for other options than cutting back on staff.

The problem with the airline industry is that its job scope is very limited, and because of the unique nature of the career itself, losing a job overnight without prior notice could have serious devastating effects on the employee’s future career. Especially in a country where insurance against unemployment is practically non-existent, and people’s financial scope does not go beyond a one month period.

Being the google freak that I am, I dug up the following figures to support my case, maybe with a slight twist:

Gulf Air sure has lots of problems to deal with, but over employment shouldn’t really be that high in their list of priorities. Actually, its ratios are not that bad when compared along the list here, battered only by Ethiopian Air.

If we drift out the subject here and talk generally about yet another aspect of the labor market here in Bahrain. Jobs aren’t really a rare breed (as long as you know the right people, and possess adequate educational qualifications and work experience), yet a challenging and productive job is pretty hard to find no matter what. The workforce is practically filled with vacancies that do not require much brain power, dull desk jobs where the employee gets to eat three full meals within the 8 hours scope of the working day, pray, socialize and even catch up with all international and local news through the newspapers.

I have literally seen how a typical day in some ministries goes about, and I am telling you, you would be lucky if those employees worked 2 hours throughout the full day.

Hundreds of thousands of Dinars are being spent on such unproductive workforce by the government; hundreds if not thousands of unskilled high school dropouts are being paid to do nothing but run around a soccer field and do pushups in green uniform as soldiers all day.

But it’s 1,500 Gulf Air employees that will be flying home, and staying there for a while.