Not an easy ride for idle taxi drivers

Shiraz Alishah and dozens of fellow taxi drivers spend an hour each morning smoking and gossiping in the car park behind Wafi Mall.

Their queue of potential customers has shortened so much they say it is pointless to begin looking for passengers until the afternoon.

“Maybe one or two hours, we don’t see any passengers,” says Mr Alishah, 28, a Pakistani who has worked in Dubai for little more than a year. “Dubai is not like before.”