Wed 15 April 2020:
Experts expect an outflow of expatriate workers from Gulf states as a result of the economic shock delivered by the coronavirus pandemic.
Gulf states rely heavily on foreign workers across all sectors of the economy, from professionals to skilled workers and manual labor. Foreigners constitute 90 percent of the population of the UAE, two-thirds in Kuwait, half in Oman and Bahrain, and one third in Saudi Arabia.
For example, the UAE has relaxed some requirements for workers moving from one employer to another which could help workers to ride out the downturn. But Karen E. Young, a resident scholar and Middle East expert at the American Enterprise Institute expects a significant outflow by the end of Ramadan at the end of May.
Government measures
The UAE enacted a new regulation on March 26 that allows employers to make workers redundant but must still provide housing (if provided contractually) and allow the employee to transfer his or her visa to a new employer if a new position is found. It also allows the employer to temporarily reduce salaries or force employees to take paid or unpaid leave. Saudi Arabia has announced partial salary support for citizens working in the private sector who are made redundant, but no support for foreign residents.
These stimulus packages and mitigation measures are unlikely to stem job losses in the largest employers in the region, such as state-owned or state-related entities in travel and tourism, retail, property and contracting, Young says.
These businesses will need major recapitalization just to survive, and they are unlikely to survive with the same number of employees.
After suspending operations for nearly two weeks, several airlines in the GCC region restarted passenger flights to repatriate foreigners last week. Emirates airline resumed passenger operations with repatriation flights from Dubai to London, Frankfurt, Paris, Brussels and Zurich.
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