Deference versus diversity in the Gulf

Commentary - Executive magazine

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have long struggled with implementing nationalization employment policies (NEPs) to bring more GCC citizens into the workplace, offset reliance on expatriate labor and diversify their oil-dependent economies. The track record has been mixed — fairly good at getting citizens into the government sector but pretty hopeless at the private sector level.

In the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, nationals account for around 80 percent of the public sector workforce, in Kuwait around 90 percent and in Qatar 94 percent, although some of these statistics are questionable. In 2009 for instance, Sheikh Mohammed bin-Rashid, vice president of the UAE, admitted that Emiratization levels “did not exceed 54 percent in ministries and 25 percent in federal authorities.”

In the private sector, Emiratis account for less than 1 percent of the workforce of the UAE, in Kuwait and Qatar around 5 percent and in Saudi Arabia 13.3 percent, according to government statistics.

While NEPs have been in place for decades, most GCC governments appear to be working hard to ensure such policies do not succeed outside the public sector. The most effective way they have done so is by raising public sector salaries to ridiculous levels. Last year, the UAE gave federal government employees a 70 percent wage increase. In September, Qatar announced it would raise government employees’ wages by 60 percent and give military officers a 120 percent salary, pension and benefits hike. What incentive does this give to young Emiratis and Qataris to become, say, entrepreneurs or scientists when a cushy job for life can be had with the government?

Instead such moves create greater dependency on the state, a useful weapon to defuse political opposition and give the impression of greater distribution of oil wealth among nationals. Yet such ruler-subject dependency is not sustainable. It is creating divisiveness between nationals and expatriates, causing social malaise and stifling the potential of the Gulf people.

Such policies also throw into question the motivation behind spending billions of dollars on educational facilities and programs if citizens’ only incentive to study is to get into the public sector. Take Qatar’s Vision 2030 and the National Development Strategy 2011-2016, which mapped out the development of both a knowledge-based and free economy. One of the lofty aims of the multi-billion dollar, state-endowed Qatar Foundation is to make these plans a reality, but this is dependent on young Qataris entering the private sector and not opting to join the military and civil service instead. (Women, on the other hand, account for 77 percent of Qatar University’s student body, which bodes well for the future.)

So how is diversification going to occur and nationalization targets be met against such seemingly great odds? Is the answer to give passports to foreign professionals and experts, as has happened with 11 players on the Qatar national football team? (When I asked one Qatari if his countrymen were proud of their team after Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 World Cup, he replied: “What team?”)

While the UAE and Qatar are scoring own goals against their private sector NEPs, Saudi Arabia is taking its Saudi-ization policy more seriously, introducing this year the Nitaqat plan to find employment for 1.12 million Saudis by 2014. But through its complex quota categories — 205 of them in all — even the labor ministry has admitted that up to 40 percent of private companies will fail to employ enough Saudis and could “cease to exist.”

There appears to be no easy way of encouraging NEPs in the private sector, either beset by onerous requirements or countered by the government placating subjects through high-paying state jobs. A balance needs to be found. The hard truth, though, is that the GCC countries need to accept that introducing viable NEPs that put the private sector ahead or on par with the public sector as an attractive employment option for nationals will eventually bring about a different relationship between the state and the people. It would mean greater governmental accountability; a step that could be viewed by the rulers as one too far. But the status quo cannot continue forever, as major socio-political problems inevitably crash the party. Leaders of certain other Arab countries have recently learnt this the hard way.