http://wam.org.ae/servlet/Satellite?...=1135099399852

When I worked for a Drug Company here years ago we had to recruit a certain quota of Emirati's, I think it was three in total. All three were Western Educated, and lasted no longer than 3 months in the job. One was sacked the other two quit because they had to working a reduced hour day during Ramadan.

Will it ever work?

Well, it's going to have to work unless they never want to be independent from an immigrant workforce.

They've got some tough decisions, I think, but either way both the government and the population are going to have to pull their fingers out and make some change.

More here:
http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-n...s-in-workforce

The key reasons Emiratis don't like working in the private sector is that these jobs tend to have fewer holidays, longer working hours and lower pay. If you think about it, public sector jobs in the UK share many of the characteristics of those in the UAE (better pensions, fewer hours, more holidays). The main difference, in the UK, is that the pay is usually better in the private sector.

It's just a matter of rational evaluation of economic incentives: if you have the option between a higher paid, fewer hours, longer holidays job in the public sector or a worse option in the private sector, why would you pick the private? The incentives are skewed because of:
a) the ability to recruit huge numbers of expatriate labour, depressing pay in the private sector
b) the lack of rigorous meritocratic recruitment in the public sector, reducing competition for jobs

yes, but part of it is also that there appear to be little actual need to work and if locals saw it as more of a need than a past-time, they would stick at whatever job they happened to land themselves.

A lack of ambition? No real requirement to work for many?

And in the UK government jobs are not usually restricted to native ethnic groups - indeed they seem to be happy to ensure quota's of minorities are fulfilled even though that is as racist as restricting positions to certain people.

N.

Yeah, that's kind of what I meant by "the lack of rigorous, meritocratic recruitment in the public sector". It's a case of jobs for the boys, really.

the hospital system is going to implode from this mis-managed system. university trained emirati nurses who are taught nothing about patient care but are being fast tracked into the roles of ward managers and nurse managers. trainee nurses being placed into icu's but not being allowed to touch male patients and trainee staff nurses that wear whatever they want to work because they want to.

When their oil starts running out, they will start working. Looking at Oman should tell one how the UAE will have to change but Omanis never had it as good and coddled as Emiratis so it will be much more stressfull for Emiratis.