Dubai Developer To Replace Fleeing Expats with Emirati Employees

In another statement of nationalistic behavior, Deyaar, on of Dubai’s major property developers, has affirmed it’s commitment to employ more Emiratis. Deyaar, one of the region’s fastest growing real estate companies, today announced its participation at the ninth annual Careers Show. The event is one of many initiatives through which the company seeks to achieve its target of 20 per cent Emiratisation by the end of 2009.

The 2009 Careers Show is being held at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, from March 29-31, 2009. “Events such as this provide an ideal platform for us to present our latest training and development opportunities to the best talent in the country and enable us to meet our objectives for Emiratisation. For 2009, our aim is to increase the number of nationals in the company to 20% of our workforce” said Markus Gliebel, Chief Executive of  Deyaar.

A swathe of job losses in real estate, financial services and tourism is leading to an exodus of expats from Dubai. The UAE’s labor and immigration laws allow for easy corporate cuts, but force foreigners who lose their jobs to find new employment within a month – or leave.

This has turned unemployment into emigration, and economists say the population of the UAE – one of the most lopsided and expatriate-driven economies in the world – could decline over the next two years.

This in turn could pummel consumer spending, cause a rise in delinquent personal loans, hamper recovery and imperil the country’s ambitious long-term growth plans, which are predicated on rosy population growth forecasts, economists say.

“It will make the economy a lot slower to recover. If you leave, you leave, and you’re probably not coming back,” says an economist at an international bank. “Some sectors have been hit very hard, and it’s hard to see a sector that will do OK and create enough jobs to offset the cuts.”

Only about 20% of the UAE’s 4.7m population is local, one of the lowest rates in the world. In the commercial hub of Dubai, Emiratis only make up about a tenth of the inhabitants, according to UBS, the Swiss bank.