To ensure the employees of the private sector are not exploited and to create additional jobs, the Social and Cultural Committee of the National Assembly recommended the Labour and Human Resources Ministry to enforce the labour law and regulations, particularly, the regulations on working condition 2012.
“There are some private owners that force their employees to work for more than eight hours. Labour Ministry should investigate it and if there is any case such as this, the Labour Ministry should take note of that and the owners should be informed. If the owners do not follow the rules at all after that too, they should be blacklisted,” said Yeshey Dem, Member of Parliament (MP) of Khamaed Lunana.
With this, three other recommendations were also put forward upon the committee’s review on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 8: Decent work and economic growth.
In current situation, one of the most critical challenges Bhutan is facing is providing gainful employment to job seekers and the development of competent workforce for sustainable economic growth. As per the committee’s report, in order to achieve the aim of inclusive economic growth, a healthier workforce should be encouraged by providing relevant skills and training to meet the labour market needs.
Therefore, the committee recommended four recommendations out of which three are with regard to provision to Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Technical Training Institute (TTI) graduates. The recommendations included employment:
The recommendations were endorsed with 41 of the MPs voting for the recommendation.
“The most concern is towards VTI and TTI graduates. That is why we are coming with an autonomous body for that. We have few laws that need to be looked at. In a week or two, everyone will know about it,” said Dr Lotay Tshering, the Prime Minister.
One of the MPs, however, voted against the recommendations and proposed an additional recommendation.
“Bhutan alone cannot employ every TTI and VTI graduates. We should, in fact, employ workers that our country needs. But we should send rest of the graduates to outside countries to supply their demand as well. That way we will be richer in human resources too,” said Tenzin, the Khatoed Laya MP.
The National Assembly during its third Plenary directed the Social and Cultural Committee to review the implementation of SDGs 8: Decent work and economic growth and present the report to the House during the third session of the third parliament.
The recommendations will be submitted to the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources for implementation.
Samten Dolkar
