Paddy09

I would appreciate any advice.

I am considering an offer for a job in Abu Dhabi. The company will provide me with regional health insurance. They have also said that they will look after my visa.

However they have refused to provide sponsorship for my wife or health insurance for her. Is this reasonable or should I only agree if they provide for her visa and health insurance? The offer is good apart from the fact that they consider me single and not married. I would not take the job if she cannot travel with me. She is Thai and not able to get the 1 month tourist visa on arrival so I think I would need to get my work permit and apply for her to follow me.

Also, is it reasonable for my employer to demand I commence work on the tourist visa and apply for my work visa after I start. I am concerned that this may effect me when I apply for my wife to follow me.

I would appreciate any advice. I am new to the UAE visas, employment contracts, etc.

Thanks

hawkhead

If they are being that tight from the word go I'd tell them to get lost. What housing are they providing? Flights home (just for you?)? Do you get an education allowance if/when you have kids? etc etc
I'm fairly sure companies have to provide health insurance, including maternity cover, for all wives of employees.
With sponsorship it it normal that you would sponsor her, though most companies would help with/pay for the process.
Starting work on a tourist visa is normal cos it can take a while to get the residency papers sorted (maybe 3 months?).
So to answer your question I would say no, it's not reasonable. Why are they treating you as a single guy when you are in fact married?

busybee2

sorry yes its becoming the thing now, with the expensive costs here, a lot of companies now are going down the single status route, but under an ad visa they have to provide medical insurance for spouse and 3 children i believe. visas can be changed from tourist to work, if you are a uk passport holder its not a problem.

busybee2

sorry didnt read it properly, thai passport holder..... may be difficult then.

lionheart

Suggest you insist on your wife being allowed to join you. If they refuse, at least you know where you stand. If the job is good enough, you could do what many others do...work alone here and have your wife visit you, but it definitely puts a stain on marital relations.

soukie

Sounds like they are trying it on to me. Is it a construction company? If you are going to be on single status you might as well consider other countries as you will probably find that the packages are better than UAE.

spart

It is not reasonable at all.

If they don't want a happy employee....you join the dots.....

Roadking

It's perfectly reasonable if the position is advertised as a "single person" role. The world has gone to hell and people on here still insist that everything should be paid by the employer. It's bloody hard for some to find a job never mind telling them they should insist on various perks.

Reasonable is the question; if it works for you, OP, then it's reasonable. Not everyone gets the featherbed package today, in fact; damn few do!

busybee2

is it reasonable for a company to have to cough up 300k in rent payable in one go and estate agents fees x amount of employees. Is it reasonable for companies to expect to be paid for the services/job they do and for clients to pay up on time.

Norm_uk

Once he's here he can always sort a visa for his wife...if his company has a nice PRO he will probably help him do it as well.

He just needs to make sure his contract will allow him to sponsor his wife...some companies put ridiculously low salaries on labour countracts and masses of "benefits" so they don't have to pay lots of gratuity when the employee leaves...the downside is that sometimes it's so low they cannot sponsor their spouse or children.

N.

spart

Mmm..agree..can be very difficult to bring someone out when you have to do it all yorself.

spart

Sorry Roadking, I disagree. Why would any any company deliberately set out to separate someone from their family? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I worked in remote locations in Asia and Australia, where an employee would be flown in and out of remote construction sites, that were not at all amenable to family life. The UAE is not at all inhospitable, so a happy/loyal employee should feel safe to bring out his family.

I think its its a bad deal. Its not a question of featherbedding, just human decency.

Roadking

No need to apologise, we all have our opinions. In this respect, yours sucks! Employers spec the job, not the candidates. If the role is for a single person, why should the employer bear the additional costs for spouse, kids, grandparents, cats, dogs or parrots?

At the end of the day, the OP can elect to take the job on the terms offered or not. He may try to negotiate a better offer but the employer is within his rights to refuse additional benefits and still be reasonable.

If the OP accepts, then he can find a way to bring his family at his cost cause that's what the job offers.

spart

Human decency, thats why. And we are not talking about big packages for cats, dogs or relocating grand pianos.

We are talking about someones wife.

Would you rather your employee was distracted for months on end, ducking out of the office for hours at a time to organise the reams of paper work and visiting government offices ect ect, or simply have a happy employee by offering the spousal visa organised your company PRO who does this type of thing day in day out.

Simply saying, if a company doesn't value your happiness, then its a bad deal.

mission

human decency? come on dude, since when does a company/corporation care about any of that shyte. I agree with ROAD...either he accepts the job as it is offered or moves on.

People are frigging lucky to have a job/get a job in this current climate and people are banging on about getting extra perks/benefits