UAE to spend $6.5 billion luring citizens to private-sector jobs

Published 12 Sep,2021 via Bloomberg Politics & Policy - The United Arab Emirates will spend 24 billion dirhams ($6.5 billion) on a package of benefits and subsidies designed to reduce citizen employment by making private sector-jobs more attractive.

As in much of the Gulf, the UAE government is the employer of choice, with many college graduates rebuffing offers from private companies while they wait for state jobs with better pay, benefits and working hours. Millions of foreigners from all over the world currently fill most private-sector jobs.

The measures the UAE government announced Sunday on Twitter include a monthly stipend of at least 800 dirhams per child and up to four times that for people earning less than 20,000 dirhams a month. That will help to close the gap between the public and private sectors as the government aims to absorb 75,000 citizens into private-sector jobs over the next five years.

Other incentives include paid training programs, supplemental income for five years, and bonuses for people employed in professions deemed important such as nursing and computer programming.

Unemployment rose to 5% in 2020 from 2.2% a year earlier, according to the latest estimates from the World Bank, which didn’t break out citizen joblessness.

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