DOHA // Qatar could soon have some of the most stringent rules in the Gulf to force private and public firms to employ nationals.
Under a proposed law being reviewed by the labour ministry, employers would face a fine of up to 100,000 rials (Dh100,900) if less than 20 per cent of their workforce is Qatari. Repeat violations would lead to a doubling or tripling of fines, and firms would face surprise inspections from officials to check if they are meeting the quota.
The proposed rules, which were passed on to the labour ministry by the state cabinet last month, would not be the first time Qatar has attempted to expand the Qatari role in its workforce. In May 1997, the Qatari emir decreed that Qataris had to make up at least 20 per cent of all private business staffs. But without legislation and enforcement, the edict had little effect: by 2005 the percentage of Qataris working in the private sector was still less than one per cent, according to the Qatar Planning Council.
Few doubt that efforts to nationalise labour forces in Qatar and across the Gulf are essential to ensuring the region's long-term social and economic security. But as far-reaching policies such as Qatar's come up against the realities of the marketplace, some question the means used to achieve this end. "It's a very, very ambitious attempt," said Steffen Hertog, a lecturer at the London School of Economics who has studied labour in the Gulf. "But no labour minister or other ministry has the regulatory capacity to monitor such a law."
Such laws lead to corruption and manipulation of the rules, he said. "It's been tried in most of the other countries in the Gulf Co-operation Council and it has uniformly failed."
Gulf states have relied heavily on skilled and unskilled foreign workers since the oil boom of the 1970s. Today, a combination of rapid growth, high unemployment and a youth bulge are compounding the problem. By 2020, the number of expatriate workers in the Gulf will increase to 30 million from today's 17 million, according to the secretariat of the GCC.
"More and more GCC citizens are graduating from universities and institutes and cannot find jobs," said a GCC Secretariat report last year. "It is time for the GCC countries to intensify their efforts to find jobs for their people … otherwise it will be too late." In the UAE and Qatar, nearly 40 per cent of the population is under 20 years old and expatriates comprise about 90 per cent of each country's workforce.
Continued failure to provide young Qataris with "the education and training needed to equip them with the appropriate skills for the market could threaten Qatar's long-term economic viability", said a 2009 report from the Rand-Qatar Policy Institute. Bahrain launched one of the region's first official nationalisation programmes in 1998. The UAE started setting quotas for the hiring of Emiratis in various sectors soon after. In 2002, Saudi Arabia set a target of a 70 per cent Saudi workforce and has begun building economic cities to employ nationals in large numbers.
Oman has made considerable strides in employment. With 80 per cent nationalisation of the public sector, it is the only Gulf state that has taken steps to reduce the government's employment of nationals. Officials in Qatar's oil and natural gas sector kicked off the country's nationalisation drive in the mid-1980s, setting a sector target of 40 per cent national staff. Many of the Qataris hired as a result were unprepared and the goal soon shifted to "quality Qatarisation", which called for improved education and training.
Qatar launched its first Strategic Qatarisation Plan in June 2000. With a target of 50 per cent national workforce across the oil and gas sector, the plan included education, training, monitoring and a biannual review. An overhaul of the Qatari school system followed, along with the opening of several prestigious US universities in Education City. Next year will see the addition of HEC Paris, one of the world's leading business schools.
In May, the energy minister, Abdullah bin Hamad al Attiyah, said he was satisfied with the programme, which had tripled the number of Qataris working in the industry, to 9,000, and achieved nearly 30 per cent Qatari staffing. Yet as in other Gulf states, bringing nationals into the private sector has proven more difficult. In 2005, private sector employment for Gulf nationals ranged from Saudi Arabia's 15 per cent to 0.7 per cent in Qatar.
The advantages of public sector employment include greater total compensation, job security and shorter working hours. In addition, many public sector jobs involve minimal skills and commitment. For years, Gulf states embraced quotas in their attempts to bring nationals into the private sector. But a backlash is building. A May 2009 study by the UAE's Emiratisation authority, Tanmia, found that the effect of quota policies was more negative than positive. Just last month, an editorial in ThePeninsula daily newspaper in Doha said that such laws could "create a sense of entitlement among its citizens".
Maryam al Sabaiye, who recently wrote her thesis on Qatarisation for the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, saw many cases in which the experienced expatriate was fired and replaced by the unprepared national. "If you want to use a quota, you have to ensure there is quality, there is training and monitoring," she said. A steady supply of cheap foreign labour and little incentive to acquire the necessary skills are additional hurdles. "Most [Qataris] have the option to enter the public sector," Mr Hertog said. "They have little reason to acquire top-notch education and experience."
He called for a market-based solution, such as a tax on employers of foreigners or increased visa fees, and commended Bahrain for moving in this direction. "As long as Qataris must compete with foreign labourers from the poorer part of the labour market, they will lose out," Mr Hertog said. Some see the proposed law - which also includes fines of up to 50,000 rials for private firms that fail to adequately train their Qatari employees - as a step back.
"This is not a good way to implement Qatarisation," Ms al Sabaiye said. "In the end it will just cost more money, time and effort."
dlepeska@thenational.ae
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
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Matthew Weiner,
Canongate
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
MATCH INFO
Champions League quarter-final, first leg
Ajax v Juventus, Wednesday, 11pm (UAE)
Match on BeIN Sports
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The specs
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six
Power: 650hp at 6,750rpm
Torque: 800Nm from 2,500-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch auto
Fuel consumption: 11.12L/100km
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The specs
Engine: Long-range single or dual motor with 200kW or 400kW battery
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 620km / 590km
Price: From Dh250,000 (estimated)
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
UAE cricketers abroad
Sid Jhurani is not the first cricketer from the UAE to go to the UK to try his luck.
Rameez Shahzad Played alongside Ben Stokes and Liam Plunkett in Durham while he was studying there. He also played club cricket as an overseas professional, but his time in the UK stunted his UAE career. The batsman went a decade without playing for the national team.
Yodhin Punja The seam bowler was named in the UAE’s extended World Cup squad in 2015 despite being just 15 at the time. He made his senior UAE debut aged 16, and subsequently took up a scholarship at Claremont High School in the south of England.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
More coverage from the Future Forum
The specs
Price: From Dh529,000
Engine: 5-litre V8
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Power: 520hp
Torque: 625Nm
Fuel economy, combined: 12.8L/100km
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Cryopreservation: A timeline
- Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
- Ovarian tissue surgically removed
- Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
- Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
- Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
'Cheb%20Khaled'
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Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo
Power: 268hp at 5,600rpm
Torque: 380Nm at 4,800rpm
Transmission: CVT auto
Fuel consumption: 9.5L/100km
On sale: now
Price: from Dh195,000
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
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Shubh Mangal Saavdhan
Directed by: RS Prasanna
Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Bhumi Pednekar
Mercedes V250 Avantgarde specs
Engine: 2.0-litre in-line four-cylinder turbo
Gearbox: 7-speed automatic
Power: 211hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 350Nm
Fuel economy, combined: 6.0 l/100 km
Price: Dh235,000
MATCH INFO
Fixture: Ukraine v Portugal, Monday, 10.45pm (UAE)
TV: BeIN Sports
JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH
Directed by: Shaka King
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons
Four stars
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SPECS
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