Expat fat

4 July 2011 By Una Galani Follow @ugalani

Foreign professionals are feeling the heat as the Arab spring brings urgency to UAE and Saudi efforts to raise employment among nationals. Creating a more sustainable workforce should eventually compensate for shortterm threats to productivity. But there’s no painfree fix.

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Government bodies and statelinked entities in Abu Dhabi have been ordered to cut levels of professional expatriate staff, according to a Financial Times report on June 27.

Unemployment amongst nationals in the capital of the UAE has risen to 14 percent, according to an analyst familiar with the government's numbers, from an average of 12 percent between 2005 and 2007.

Earlier this year, Saudi created 60,000 new government jobs as part of a $130 billion package to boost its budget amid growing social unrest in the region.

In May, Saudi Arabia begun to update its rules governing employment in the Kingdom amid a renewed push to bring nationals into the workforce.

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