Dubai Persists With Local Employment Support Measures

by Lorys Charalambous, for LawAndTax-News.com, Cyprus

16 March 2006

'Emiratization' is not much liked by foreign companies in Dubai, but the Labour Ministry's PR Officers' campaign has imposed 1,200 PROs on larger companies in the Emirate, which has about 33,000 registered unemployed nationals.

The official emiratization agency, Tanmia, found an equivalent number of jobs for unemployed nationals last year, but the Labour Ministry says its policy created more jobs than that for UAE nationals in just 45 days.

Humaid Bin Deemas, assistant labour undersecretary at the Labour Ministry, said as of February 6 more than 1,200 nationals now worked as Public Relations Officers (PRO), tasked with handling company transactions with government bodies.

Most of the nationals were hired after the Labour Ministry enforced a decision from January 2 that the 2,700 companies with more than 100 workers had to hire a national PRO. Companies that do not are unable to process their transactions at the Ministry.

Bin Deemas said Tanmia was doing a professional job but that clear policies issued by the Labour Minister, who also heads up Tanmia, made emiratisation work more successfully. He said the Ministry was still cautious about announcing the UAE PRO policy a success, because of concerns some companies had hired nationals on paper to avoid ministry penalties.

Last year, Tanmia (The Board of Trustees of the National Human Resources Development and Employment Authority), chaired by Dr Ali bin Abdullah Al Kaabi, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, decided to step up measures to deny firms not complying with the prescribed Emiratisation quotas the right to obtain work permits and entry visas for foreign labour.

When Dubai and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), of which it forms a part, began an 'emiratisation' jobs program two years ago, ministers were very reassuring, but employers now say that nationals are being parachuted into positions for which they are not qualified.

Businesses complain that nationals are unhappy with entry-level jobs like reception or office help positions and consider this type of work beneath them, no doubt encouraged by the policies of Tanmia.

Tanmia is investing a lot of time and money in training candidates for the skills that are required, but the imposition of quotas for the employment of nationals is a blunt weapon, even if the quotas are more stringent for the government's own agencies than for private firms.

An anonymous hotel manager complains that there is growing pressure to hire more locals. “We try to be as proactive as we can but how can you hire locals who would not touch alcohol and feel it beneath them to make hotel beds? If they try to slap official quotas on this industry, it would be a farce.”

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