DUBAI: It is called the ‘cultural diversity policy’ — but what it means is that the visa applications of workers from mostly Asian nations will be scrutinized carefully and often rejected because of officials’ concern about their growing numbers in the United Arab Emirates.

UAE authorities are voicing their displeasure at the stark demographic imbalance in the country, which has over the decades seen the number of foreigners grow to make up more than 90 per cent of the 1.7 million workforce.

Nearly 10 million foreigners, most of them unskilled or semi-skilled migrants, work in the Gulf states and the majority of them are from Asia, welcomed here during the oil boom years and now doing a lot of basic services for the country. The breakup of this foreign presence is a startling revelation of the country’s dependence on migrant workers — Indians 53.7 per cent, Pakistanis 18 per cent, other Asian nationalities 15.4 per cent and Arabs 10.6 per cent.

Now, however, many Asian workers are worried about the shrinking space for their labour and uncertain about their future as the government steps up action to ease the country’s reliance on foreign, mostly Asian, labour.

“This (dependence on foreign workers) is a matter of grave concern,” Abdul Al Suwaidi, an Arab human resources manager in Dubai, one of the seven emirates in the UAE, said in an interview. “It poses a serious threat to the demographic balance of our workforce and will affect the very structure of our labour market.”

“It has to be curbed and non-Asians must be given opportunities, more so workers from Arabic-speaking countries,” he said.

So the search is on — workers from non-Asian nations and Arabic-speaking African countries are now in demand. Nationals from Sudan, Somalia, Egypt, and Morocco are being recruited right away, as also from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Yemen.

But there is a catch — many companies here find it a Herculean task to find skilled workforce and cheap labour among these nationalities.

Ali Khan, a logistics manager at the Free Zone in Dubai, said in an interview, “we have been asked not to recruit any more Asians. But for the past six months we have been desperately hunting for skilled labour from among the favoured countries and have been disappointed. Finally we have put our recruitment on hold and are struggling to make do with the existing workforce.”

The working population in the UAE has more than doubled during the last decade, growing at an average rate of 7.5 per cent per year.

From 1993 to 2002, its total population increased by 79 per cent to nearly 3 million, growing by a high average of six per cent a year per annum. Foreigners now make up some 85 per cent of the population.

The UAE’s recent moves are but the latest reflection of official concern about its reliance on foreign workers and its changing demography.

In January, UAE President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan said: “This imbalance continues to pose a grave problem which threatens the stability of our society and the prospects for future generations.”

In keeping with his call for measures to “remedy this imbalance”, the UAE Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs launched its ‘cultural diversity policy’ to create a balance in the structure of the labour market.

This has led to a rise in the number of non-Asian workers, as cultural diversity has become a major criterion for granting new employment visas.

Officials stress that there is no specific quota for any nationality. But, when a company applies for an employment visa for a new worker, the ministry checks its records of employees. If it finds that the majority who are to be recruited are of the same nationality, the company is asked to recruit nationals from other countries.

“That (no quotas) may be true on paper,” said Ajay Singh, an Indian telephone operator in a publishing firm in Dubai, “but visa applications of many of my Asian friends have been rejected and they have had to return home”.

“Many of the unwritten benefits are also being tapered out — earlier, companies used to agree to provide inflated salary certificates so that workers not eligible for family visas because of low salaries could still get their families over,” he added. “But now they flatly refuse.”

Officials at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs say that employment permits granted to Arabs are on the rise after secondary school certificates — unlikely for most Asian workers to have — were made a minimum requirement for getting such permits. This rule applies to all workers except labourers in the construction sector and Arab workers, and officials believe this will make for a more multicultural demography.

According to them, hundreds of visas to workers from Arab countries have been issued since this became effective. Increasing numbers are from African and East European countries.

Thus far, some 400,000 work visas are issued annually by the ministry and Asians accounted for 78 per cent of them. Among the Arabs, Egyptians and Syrians were issued the most number of visas last year

A study by the UN Economic and Social Committee for Western Asia states that the demography is one of the major challenges facing the UAE. It said that most companies have conducted feasibility studies on the basis of cheap manpower, thus excluding UAE nationals in these projects. It has called on the authorities to work hard to qualify nationals and enable them to gain the best skills in the shortest time to boost the ‘Emiratization’ policy.

“It is warnings like these and the truly visible numbers of Asian workers in the country that have prompted the authorities to sit up and take notice,” said Abdul, “and, as the study shows, even from an academic point of view, such steps are necessary for a country that is keen to see its nationals and its identity develop. It may seem a harsh move, but it is an essential one.”

Cheap, unwanted and at risk is the general feeling that pervades the Asian workforce community, especially among the unskilled. They are apprehensive about their future and dread the thought of renewing their existing visas. This often forces them to stay on illegally in the country.

“I have to survive,” said Hassan, a Pakistani delivery boy at a supermarket in Dubai, “so I have stayed on in the country without papers.”

“I know that it is wrong, but I also know that my visa application will get rejected if I go through the right channels. Living with the risk of getting thrown into prison is far more preferable to going back home and seeing the distraught faces of my parents and siblings who depend on me for survival,” he explained.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.