ABU DHABI Ñ Gulf Arab states are failing in their drive to reduce
foreign labor.
A government report in the United Arab Emirates predicts a four-fold
increase in foreign laborers by 2015. The UAE Labor Ministry study said most
of the laborers will come from Asian states such as India.
The report said the government has proven incapable of increasing jobs
for Gulf Arab nationals, particularly in the private sector. The ministry
said that at the end of 2001 the UAE contained 1.45 million foreign
laborers, 87 percent of them from Asia. In 1995, the fiture was 1.2 million.
More than half of the foreign labor force was from India. Only 10.6
percent from were from Arab states.
"In the absence of a strategy to replace foreigners and find jobs for
nationals, expatriate workers are projected to climb to around 4.8 million
in 2015," the government study, published in the Abu Dhabi Chamber's monthly
magazine, Iqtisad Abu Dhabi, said.
The study estimated unemployment among UAE nationals to be 9.6 percent,
a figure expected to increase in the next few years. The Labor Ministry
report said more than 500,000 foreign laborers are in what was termed
"marginal jobs that do not have any contribution to the domestic economy."
The UAE as well as other GCC countries have drafted plans to replace
foreign laborers. But most of those plans have fallen way behind schedule as
young Gulf Arabs refuse to fill blue-collar positions.
In Saudi Arabia, officials have acknowledged that government agencies
have
been unable to find engineers who are Saudi nationals. This has forced one
agency, the Saline Water Conversion Corporation, to obtain 14 Indian and
Pakistani engineers and technicians from private companies.
Agency spokesman Khaled Al Maneefi said Saudi engineers did not respond
to job vacancies published in local newspapers. As a result, the agency
obtained permission to hire foreign employees.
"The company was compelled to recruit the foreign workers as a last
resort and in the best interests of the public as the corporation needed
them to commission new projects without delay," Al Maneefi said. "The
corporation has recruited experienced engineers and technicians who have
been working with private contractors in the pipeline maintenance sector in
the kingdom."
In Bahrain, the kingdom has appealed to young nationals to enter the
security field. But officials acknowledge that most of the jobs in the field
are taken by foreign laborers.
"More and more Bahraini men and women have shown tremendous interest in
taking on security jobs, but unfortunately opportunities in this sector are
limited," Fadhel Mohammed Badhow, a manager at the Bahrain Training
Institute, said.
