BBC article on Dubai
 

BBC - Capital - Is the UAE still a high-paid expat haven?

more gloom... but not as bad as this guy:

https://voiceofthemarkets.blogspot.c...ddle-east.html

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

I liked the 45 year old Brit expat who's had six jobs in 10 years and is currently on what he made 10 years ago.... I suspect this is actually very common in the GCC, no? But surely the streets in Dubai weren't paved with gold 10 years ago either. I remember similar complaints from when I first came into the country.

On a similar theme I know in my office we were paying senior western engineers 50-70k five years ago and most of them are now gone and for a upcoming project we're staffing it with people on 30ish.

As for the blog, what's the meaning behind this: We are also expecting lot of turmoil between USA and Saudi/UAE Jan 2019 onwards.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

6 jobs in 10 years is a disaster - says a lot about him, I guess.

I came on1st feb 2008 and certainly it was gold rush time. By 2009 it was dead. The real money was made in 2004-2008. Since then it's been pretty stagnant apart from a few key areas.

"We are also expecting lot of turmoil between USA and Saudi/UAE Jan 2019 onwards" - war, policy, interest rates, oil... name your poison.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

What is your prediction for 2019, Millhouse?

And I'm asking quite sincerely.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

Just read his blog and he is all doom and gloom about GCC - he thinks oil will be low $30 in the next few months (not that i can personally see it fall that low again!)

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

It also says a lot about the lack of security in the labour laws and recriminations against employers who lack morals.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

Eh.

Labour laws mean diddly squat when there ain't no money in the company kitty.

The cyclical nature of work means that quite a few people only last as long as a contract is active. The cost of employment is usually very high and makes it difficult to justify keeping staff on overhead till the next project. A lot of firms in all sectors operate on boom/bust cycles.

Then of course we have what passes for local talent in the Gulf. Lots of ambitious people hungry for promotion and start their first day of employment with an eye on the next job for that extra few thousands a month. I know a few who shimmied up the pole pretty quickly by hopping around a lot.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

I predict that there will be another millhouse in this world. The rest, I don't care about at the moment.

But... if you look at the predicted supply of housing in Dubai in the next 24 months. More units scheduled for delivery in the next 2 years than were delivered in the last 10. These units are >60% built and so likely to actually be delivered....wow, just wow

Oil - no idea, anyones guess but I struggle to be bullish on it.
Interest rates - peaking in the next 6 months - with cuts backs all around thereafter.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

Congratulations!

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

Speculative building?

UAE is becoming India rather quickly; wages, benefits etc. are dropping to that kind of level except for at the top of the chain. You'd expect a wipe out of many high end stores, restaurants, luxury apartments etc. down to a sustainable percentage to match the new reality. Pound shops springing up on the high street :)

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

Dubai Mall yesterday evening illustrated this perfectly. The main thoroughfares busy with residents and groups of tourists. The ice rink, low to mid range restaurants and the food court all very busy. Fashion avenue, by contrast, was a total ghost town.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

Spot on weasel. My thoughts exactly.

When I lived in business bay, I used to go to Pizza Express Live a fair bit. In only a couple of years the demographic changed from Europeans piling down the food and wine, to Indians studying menus, using wouchers and nursing their one glass of vine all night long. The same happened in my building (with a corresponding increase in rubbish left on the floor of the bin room) - I've done a fair bit of malling this weekend and the discounting is pretty insane - goes to show the top end stores are struggling to sell anything.

If you think about the deliveries of overbuilding, this is stuff all sold during the 2015/2016 mini-boom. (terrible charts below have the dates running the wrong way but they show the point)

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...a3520e51b3.jpg
(2018 is the last Q)

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...3608498ca6.jpg
2011/2012 properties were likely sold in 2008.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

We're considering moving home because of the demographic. Prices peaked and then have come back a bit and because they're huge apartments they appeal to those with large families or extended families.

The bin room. Sigh. It's a ****ing disgrace to open several doors, get all the way there, open the bin room door and then just dump it on the floor.


Anyway. The jobs market at the moment for Dubai is summarised with what I've been telling so many candidates and colleagues locally: all roads lead to Saudi.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

And he spent 14 months out of work. So that's 8yrs 10 months for 6 jobs. That's an average of 1yr 5months in each job. Not even 18 months.

That's more jobs than I've had hot dinners.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

I once collected all of the rubbish and returned it to the owner. I also confirmed with them that I would continue to place it outside their door until they behaved. Took two goes to fix the problem.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

Unfortunately it could be one of several apartments, so knowing who is almost impossible. I'm currently more bothered by the bellends upstairs and the noise they make. I'm almost coming to the end of apartment life I think.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

That was one of the main main reasons I shifted out of my lovely apartment! The ****ing wankers upstairs and there combined family system of a hundred kids plus they had converted their floor to wooden flooring so more sound and in the past year I actually had to go up at odd hours of the night and ring the bell and shout at them and threaten them with calling the police to shut them up for a few weeks, but it would start all over again. I am not going to name which part of the world they were from.
The father was a true classic original ***wit who would say how can I stop them from running around. He had 3 shops in and around the area that we lived, BMW 7 Series driver (yeah I know!) and guess what happened...3 shops turned to 2 and then to one and then to none by the time I had left. So theres the economic pointer for you of how things are.....but Ill be brutally honest, I derived personal pleasure of his downfall because he was a total wanker for the 5 years that I lived there. I got myself a penthouse now specifically for this reason.

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

Reminds me of our time in Furjan Apartments where we had a family dragging furniture 9-10 times a day, sometimes for a few seconds at a stretch so couldn't be just dining chairs being moved at meal times

We left a note with some furniture leg covers, and in return we got a long letter with ear cotton buds (!), the letter mentioned how he/she has a "lawer" license in Pakistan, and how they are aware of legal matters, and how they will send a legal notice to us for not respecting their right to move stuff inside their home .....

Re: BBC article on Dubai
 

We've recently moved from 3, maybe 4 families, in one house next door. All drove high end SUVs - X5, Infinity, Merc etc and the weirdest goings on all the time. Moving furniture was a given but also banging, hammering and hoovering on a daily basis. The water pump used to run continuously too. Initially assumed it was some workshop in Al Quoz downgrading due to the current climate. The pick ups and hi-luxes that periodically came do their door supported this, but thoughts of more miscreant manufacturing regularly crossed our minds too. I probed a little via maintenance and the agency but both just said it was multiple families sharing. I guess with that amount of people, there're more hoovering to be done.

Re: BBC article on Dubai