Coronavirus Leaves UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia Expats in Limbo - Bloomberg:
The combined shock of collapsing oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic is forcing the Arab Gulf monarchies to rethink their policies toward the majority of the region’s private-sector workers: expatriates.
The deepest peacetime recession since the 1930s is claiming millions of jobs worldwide, but in the $1.6 trillion Gulf economy job loss typically compromises everything from immigration status to the ability to open a bank account, rent an apartment or get a phone line, all of which often require employer permission. Comprising some 30 million people, virtually all foreign workers have no clear route to attain permanent residency or citizenship.
Mass layoffs pose “a huge risk,” said Karen Young, a resident scholar covering the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. In countries like the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, “the entire domestic, service-sector economy depends on expatriates’ consumption: spending money, going to restaurants, retail.”
The combined shock of collapsing oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic is forcing the Arab Gulf monarchies to rethink their policies toward the majority of the region’s private-sector workers: expatriates.
The deepest peacetime recession since the 1930s is claiming millions of jobs worldwide, but in the $1.6 trillion Gulf economy job loss typically compromises everything from immigration status to the ability to open a bank account, rent an apartment or get a phone line, all of which often require employer permission. Comprising some 30 million people, virtually all foreign workers have no clear route to attain permanent residency or citizenship.
Mass layoffs pose “a huge risk,” said Karen Young, a resident scholar covering the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. In countries like the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, “the entire domestic, service-sector economy depends on expatriates’ consumption: spending money, going to restaurants, retail.”
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