Beginning in early August, Bahrain will implement a new labor law that will end the employer sponsorship system and permit foreign workers to change jobs without their employer’s consent. As reported in The National, the law was adopted following three years of consideration and is the first of its kind in the Gulf region.

The law is designed help end to the practice of some Bahraini employers that sponsor several—and sometimes hundreds of—foreign workers and charge them a “visa fee” to work with another employer. The workers, mostly from the Indian subcontinent, are not allowed to change jobs without their sponsor’s permission. Once the law takes effect, an employer will be able to terminate an employee’s contract and deport him or her with one month’s notice, and an employee will be able to leave his or her job after giving three months’ notice to the employer.

The law also is intended to help decrease the number of foreigners entering Bahrain to work. Currently there are more than 500,000 expatriates in the country, which accounts for about half of Bahrain’s population. The government also is considering a cap on the number of foreigners who enter Bahrain and expects to resolve by the question by the end of 2009.