UAE Gets Tough On Emiratisation

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

06 June 2005

The UAE will deny work permits and entry visas to firms that do not comply with their prescribed 'emiratisation' quotas, says Tanmia, the body responsible for administering the program.

The Board of Trustees of the National Human Resources Development and Employment Authority (Tanmia), chaired by Dr Ali bin Abdullah Al Kaabi, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, decided at a recent meeting 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.

Only 17% of the 4 million people living in the UAE are nationals, and only 40% of these have college degrees. Although the employment market in Dubai in particular is booming, there are currently 32,000 unemployed nationals (4.7%), with 6,000 graduates coming onto the market annually. These figures mean that there is an inadequate supply of nationals, skilled or otherwise.

Studies done by Tanmia reveal that in the banking sector only seven out of 47 banks operating in the UAE had achieved their 2004 Emiratisation target of four per cent; that over 19 banks registered a gap of over 10 per cent between the targeted and realised levels; and that the overall Emiratisation percentage realised by the sector was 27.6 per cent. In the insurance sector, only one out of the 46 operating firms achieved the prescribed quota (5 per cent) and that the nationals accounted for only 5.3 per cent of the sector's overall work force in 2004. Practical steps were agreed upon in the meeting to accelerate implementation of the Cabinet resolutions in order to reverse the modest results.

The main focus of Tanmia's meeting was on Emiratisation in the various sectors of the UAE economy. The meeting discussed progress of implementation of the Cabinet's resolutions on 2005 employment quotas in the private sector including banking sector (4 per cent), insurance companies (5 per cent) and in trade companies employing 50 workers or more (2 per cent), and on the full Emiratisation of executive, administrative, clerical positions (and business ownership) of travel and tourism, manpower supply and real estate agencies.

In the trade sector, 537 firms have furnished the required data while 118 declined. Accordingly, Tanmia has requested the Ministry of Labour to apply the appropriate measures against the non-compliers, and to give the firms who furnished the data a respite up to the end of 2005, in recognition of their timely response.

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 training them 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 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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