Introduction
The British left the UAE with an immature educational system that has failed to produce a productive human resource sector to date. Since independence, the UAE economy has lacked a stable inbred national human resource, and has often relied on the imported human labour and foreign expatriates (Al-Waqfi and Forstenlechner 168).
The blossoming sectors of Tourism, Manufacturing, Hospitality, and Information Technology, which are vital to the UAE, are lacking an aboriginal expertise. The dependence on the foreign expatriates is gradually causing economical, social, and political dilemmas.
The UAE has recently enhanced its commitment to reduce the foreign expatriates through the Emiratisation approach, which seems to attract legal, ethical, and political discourses (Jasim 365). Fundamental to such dilemmas, this essay presents twelve disadvantages of Emiratisation, with some strong evidentiary support.
Emiratisation Will Demean International Trade
Bilateral trade links have saturated the world, with the UAE economy being among the economies that rely on the international trade. According to Jasim, international trade entails exchanging exports and imports of human resources, raw materials, manufactured goods, and technologies between two trade partners (367).
Imposing capitalist approaches through the workforce nationalization strategy would result to international wrangles concerning equity in the international trade. On average, over 31% of the UAE economy relies on the export of the precious crude oil to several nations across the world.
Trade is a commercial strategy that often depends on stringent trade agreements and arrangements (Randeree 73). Displacing foreign workforce without a plan might affect the UAE oil trade.
The Emerging Non-Oil Sector
The Emirati economy has recently noticed that excess reliance on the oil sector to generate national revenue may be detrimental, due to the gradual decrease in the oil production (Randeree 72). The EAU counties have harmoniously agreed to emphasize on stabilizing the non-oil sectors to secure the future of their economy.
The non-oil sectors such as Manufacturing, Information Technology, Banking, Real Estate, Airline, and Trade, majorly rely on the foreign expatriates, due to the lack of skilled native workforce. The rapidly growing non-oil sector contributes to 71% of the GDP of Emirati, with a trade value of AED1.2 trillion per annum. Forcible elimination of the reliable foreign expatriates in the non-oil sector will devastate the UAE economy. See table 1.
(Forstenlechner et al. 408)
Emiratisation Would Discourage Foreign Investment
The UAE economy profoundly relies on oil extraction, and its expertise in the non-oil investment is still immature. Internal tariffs on the foreign investment would affect the foreign investors. Globally, the labour standards pertaining to the international trade and investment require nations to respect the collective bargaining principles (Al-Waqfi and Forstenlechner 169).
Apart from breaching the international investment policies, imposing discriminatory policies on the privately owned firms would discourage foreign investors.
By 2006, 91 percent of the 2.4 million workers were foreign expatriates, with the majority 53% of them were working in privately owned firms (Randeree 75). Furthermore, the UAE private sector requires a skilled workforce that can initiate mega projects, a demand that the UAE nationals can barely satisfy.
The Complicated UAE National Workforce
Although the Emiratisation strategy is an ideal idea that would stabilize the future of the UAE economy, the demands of the UAE nationals are complex. Forstenlechner, Madi, Selim, and Rutledge state that expatriates are competent in almost all technical and manual jobs, while the UAE nationals are choosy and professionally disoriented (410).
Notwithstanding their incompetence, the UAE nationals demand for higher compensation, favourable working conditions, proper job security, greater working benefits, and minimal working duration.
The UAE nationals often yearn for the public sector jobs that offer better working conditions, and forcing them into the private sector may be illegitimate (Randeree 78). Governmentally forced occupations into the private sectors is a practice against the international labour laws that discourage forced labour.
Lack of a Stable Succession Plan
Emiratisation is increasingly approaching its targets, but the lack of a suitable succession plan, would hamper its progress and affect the future of the UAE economy. The most disturbing issue that would hamper the economic progress when the foreign expatriates depart is the lack of a strategic succession plan (Wilkins 155). There are currently no policies or strategies governing the smooth succession of the expatriates.
Over 3,278,000 expatriates currently dominate the private and public sectors of the UAE (Randeree 76). To discourage an influx of expatriates, the Emiratisation model is unethically recruiting foreigners on fixed and non-renewable contracts with limited working durations. Such approaches are against equality of treatment and opportunity policy of the ILO. See table 1.
(Randeree 73)
Little Control over the UAE Private Firms
The UAE economy has a very little sovereignty on the private organizations operating within its borders. The implications of Emiratisation is that forced resignations, dismissals and denial of rights for renewal of contracts in the private sector organizations would deem illegal and against the international business standards (Wilkins 159).
Out of the 91% of the 2.4 million national workers of the UAE economy, 99% of the expatriates work in the private sector, and adhere to private sector regulations that the national government can barely interfere with (Wilkins 158). The UAE economy will attract legal controversies when they impose regulations to streamline the recruitment and retention practices of the private firms.
The Plight of the UAE women in the Strategy
The UAE female nationals are contemptuous about the mixed-gender workplaces, and often prefer working in the female-dominated sectors or opt to remain jobless due to their cultural beliefs (Randeree 82). The Emiratisation strategy is likely to affect the culturally controlled women who lack the required corporate competence or who adhere to the Islamic doctrines.
Currently, the UAE women have remained underrepresented in the national workforce. Inclusion of the UAE women in the national workforce is relatively low. According to Randeree, out of the 13.8% of the unemployed natives, 12.0% are women, while only 2.0% are men (81). Dismissal of the foreign expatriates will pave way to the establishment of strong Islamic cultural norms that will undermine the female workforce.
Breach of the International Labour Laws
The international labour laws govern labour relationship between native workers, transnational companies, and foreign expatriates. The international labour laws form part of the national labour laws of the UAE economy. These laws control the foreign workforce appointments, workforce contracts, working conditions, employment regulations, equity in workplaces, and training and development issues (Wilkins 157).
Forceful displacement of expatriates and foreign workforce would undermine the international labour regulations. The UAE has currently breached the international labour standards that advocate for equitable access to opportunities and fair treatment for all the employees regardless of their nationality.
Wilkins (159) states that currently, 60% of the foreign expatriates working in the UAE remain subjected to unfair Emiratisation quotas and bans.
Human Rights and Ethics of Business
The UAE economy has enacted regulations that favour the UAE nationals and frustrate the immigrant workers. The concepts of equal opportunity and equal treatment of the international labour laws and standards are undergoing gradual demolition, as the majority of the immigrant workers in the private sector are suffering from over taxation (Forstenlechner et al. 406).
The UAE has given international private firms an optional ultimatum to pay an annual sum of 60,000 AED to the Labour Ministry for the training of the unemployed and the unskilled Emiratis, or quit the Arabian markets (Wilkins 158). Such attempts have an indirect impact on the private workforce, because workers have to contribute through taxes to meet such corporate demands levied against their companies.
Poor Policy Formulation and Implementation
The Emiratisation approach has been ethically insensitive, since what matters most to the UAE economy is to experience an increase of the indigenous workforce in the national labour market (Forstenlechner et al. 409).
Some of the UAE policies aimed towards workforce nationalization and reduction of the foreign expatriates include forcible deportation, strict policies towards visa issuance, denial of health insurance to foreigners and restrictions on the visa trade.
Due to the enforcement of the unfavourable quotas and bans that seem to be in the form of discriminatory affirmatives, an estimated number of 10,000 secretarial staffs in the private sector will probably lose their jobs (Randeree 76). Emiratisation strategy uses non-renewable contracts that displace millions of the expatriates unfairly.
The Unstable Educational Systems
The most devastating impact of the forcible elimination of the foreign expatriates is the future of the UAE economy that would plunge due to the unstable and incompetent indigenous workforce that would replace the skilled expatriates (Forstenlechner et al. 415). The UAE educational system and the levels of professional expertise are considerably low, and the educational standards are pitiable.
The UAE educational system is unstable, with the higher education institutions still relying on the same foreign expatriates to train and develop youngsters. Randeree states that the 60% productive youths with 20 years and above are gradually undergoing Islamic radicalization, and a mere percentage has undergone formal training (80). Of the 27% who have undergone college training, a few can communicate in fluent English.
Low Innovation and Expertise among the Local Workers
Emiratisation is putting the UAE economy on the verge of collapsing, since expatriates from the Western nations may not have adequate time to transfer the necessary commercial and entrepreneurial skills to the UAE nationals (Wilkins 161).
Displacing and deporting foreign expatriates, who possess competent skills required to handle the international market competition between private firms, will plummet the private sector and hamper the UAE economy in general.
A mere workforce population of 70,000 (1%) of the UAE nationals, works in the private sector, while a vast majority of about 192,000 (80%) explores their careers in the government and offer workforce services to the public entities (159). Such circumstances suggest that even the experienced public workers can barely fit into the private sector.
Conclusion
The blossoming oil extractions and oil ventures generated enough national revenue for the UAE economy, and encouraged laxity on the UAE nationals who failed to see the need of professionalism or career development. Emiratisation as a strategy that seeks to displace the foreign expatriates and immigrant workforce may have some devastating impacts on the UAE economy and its nationals.
Low professional competence in the private sector jobs, unprofessional education, high salary expectation of the UAE nationals, culture, demand for favourable working conditions and generous vacations, are the disadvantages of Emiratisation that would make the UAE economy plummet.
Furthermore, forcible displacement, retrenchment, dismissal, and revocation of working contracts are actions that are internationally unlawful, unethical, and unprofessional.
Works Cited
Al-Waqfi, Mohammed and Ingo Forstenlechner. “Barriers to Emiratisation: the role of policy design and institutional environment in determining the effectiveness of Emiratisation. The International Journal of Human Resource Management 25.2 (2014): 167-189. Print.
Forstenlechner, Ingo, Mohamed Madi, Hassan Selim, and Emilie Rutledge. “Emiratisation: determining the factors that influence the recruitment decisions of employers in the UAE.” The International Journal of Human Resource Management 23.2 (2012): 406-421. Print.
Jasim, Al‐Ali. “Emiratisation: drawing UAE nationals into their surging economy.” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 28.9 (2008):365-379. Print.
Randeree, Kassim. “Strategy, Policy, and Practice in the Nationalization of Human Capital: ‘Project Emiratisation.”Research, and Practice in Human Resource Management 17.1 (2009): 71-91. Print.
Wilkins, Stephen. “International briefing 9: Training and development in the United Arab Emirates.” International Journal of Training and Development 5.2 (2001): 153-165. Print.