Soon we will be outnumbered!

I've often read and heard this phrase whilst living in Europe. The theme resonates to the same tune: if we continue to let in more immigrants and foreign workers we will lose our culture, identity and our jobs.

This is usually touted by nationalist newspapers, certain political parties and often by the man sitting at the bar in your local pub. Although I don't agree with all the elements and the portrayed dangers of immigration, I have witnessed aspects of these which have already taken place in  several Middle East Gulf countries. 

If we take a quick look at the demographics of Gulf countries one would be surprised at the statistics. In certain countries, foreign workers outnumber the natives by disproportionate ratios (UAE: 4:1, Qatar 3:1, Kuwait 3:1). 

How did this  happen? These gulf countries have seen rapid economic development fuelled by successive oil booms which has led to double digit growth rates. There was an initial need for skilled and unskilled foreign workers to help set up and run oil & gas projects as well as execute the government funded infrastructure visions. This set a precedent and an increasing number of foreign workers were relied on for cheap labour and often for jobs that would service the growing non-native population. 

To keep up with the high growth rates, the local governments further opened the borders in order to diversify its markets into service, business and tourism sectors. The lack of native skills (or willingness to work in certain sectors) has led to more people relocating to these countries to work. Virtually zero taxes, wide use of English and an 'american' lifestyle (large affordable villas, big cars, shopping malls, open market for entrepreuneurs) has encouraged many skilled workers to come to Doha, Dubai, Manama and Al Khobar. 

The changes and rapid development have been phenomenal. Places like Dubai and Doha were fairly quiet port towns less than 20 years ago but have now become world-class cities with outstanding infrastructure and a quality of life (for most people) comparable to the world's top 10 countries. Alas, all this has come at a cost for the native Arab population. There's increasing anger vented by young Saudis, Emiratis and Qataris that they can't find work outside the generous government paid public sector. In certain countries up to 50% of them are unemployed! 

Saudi Arabia is not spared by this and several times a year publishes statistics to show the negative effect of the over reliance on foreign workers. On weekends in Riyadh, most foreigners will stop by a bank or remittance branch such as Western Union to send a significant portion of their income to their home countries. This doesn't necessarily concern workers from the third world or emerging countries, but also your American engineer or Swedish project manager will also regularly send most of their earnings out of Saudi Arabia. According to an article in the English daily Arab News, more than $16 Billion (government supplied figure) was sent out of Saudi Arabia in 2008 making it the second ranked remittance contributor in the world. The government and media try to draw attention to how much money is 'lost' and ultimately not re-invested into the Saudi economy. 

There are other concerns in the UAE, which is smaller than Saudi Arabia and proportionally wealthier per capita. Unemployment is also relatively high among the young natives, but the talk in the media these last few years has focused on the loss of culture, identity and language rather than the loss of money or jobs. Only 18% of the population are native and the majority group are Indian expatriates. A common joke to visitors says it is more useful to learn how to speak Hindi in Abu Dhabi or Dubai than Arabic. On a recent well publicised visit to Qatar, the Dubai police commander said on a tv show that Gulf nationals could soon be marginalised and could become like native Indians in America who were the original inhabitants but have lost their culture and language to others. Here is the article

Qatar has received a lot of media coverage in the last few years and more recently after being awarded the right to host the 2022 world cup (despite the recent FIFA scandal). After visiting Doha for a day, one can clearly see the erosion of national culture and identity as everyone speaks English, everything is written in English (albeit certain translated Arabic signs), practically all customer facing jobs are held by expatriates and as a result it is very rare to interact with locals. I've noticed on several occasions young local children who are perhaps no older than 5 who used english to address a waiter in a restaurant or a shop clerk rather than speaking in their native Arabic.

A rather amusing article depicts this and is the narrative of an American businessman who goes to Doha for 48 hours for a business trip. He took a Qatar Airways flight from the US and was served by Chinese cabin crew. When he got to Doha, the taxi driver was Pakistani. At the hotel, the receptionist was Indian. He then went for dinner in the centre of Doha and was served by a Filipino waitress. He decided to go for a drink in a bar which was staffed by Bangladeshi waiters and all his business meetings were with non-Qataris. He ended the article by saying that he had not come into contact with a single Qatari except for the customs officials at the airport. 

The government and natives of these countries are increasingly trying to address the above issues via several schemes. In the UAE, Zayed University set up a programme whereby flags and other national symbols are distributed in public places to nationals and non-nationals. The theme is My Flag My Identity (see picture). In Qatar, an initiative was launched by a large private company to promote entrepreneurship amongst the young by the means of organising a contest to generate business ideas and creativity. The aim was to encourage young locals to think outside the box and to take part in a fair where they would sell their products and services for a day. Saudi Arabia just last week, announced a traffic light coloured rating system for the private sector where companies will be audited and labelled with a colour to show how many Saudi nationals they employ and whether they have a programme in place to create more jobs for Saudis.