Job Discussion Forums

[Green Acres]

New slavery? Sounds like a political slogan.

Self-imposed slave conditions and economic slavery? How is it any different than America at the turn of the 20th century? All those immigrants coming to America to find freedom and ending up like the one's portrayed by Sinclair in the Jungle? Isn't this the brutal nature of capitalism -- to enlsave workers?

What is more....are we comparing levels of slavery? I feel like a slave at times. Could it be that I, like many of you who read this, are just a higher class of slave? If any of the examples provided above are to be taken, then we are all slaves by some comparable standard. Your chains don't seem as restrictive or as heavy as some other slave that you have observed -- yet how are any of you/them different? S&B, you confuse labeling for a definition. What is a slave? (One should read the great intergallactic novel, "Martians are from Mars, humans are slaves, but they haven't woken up to the fact, yet.")

...slavery was legal here in oman until qaboos took power in 1970. so it's still a pretty recent thing, the "hangover" effect of it in my view still remains and gives rise to some of the "dynamic" here wherein people won't change a tire or order from a takeout without expecting hired help to do it for them. there's no denying a "serve me" attitude prevails amongst the locals (which i gather is fairly endemic in the gulf to varying degrees), sure it's technically not slavery but...

[norwalkesl]

Back to the OP:

I think of the USA and how it has a culture of innovation but it is now plagued with massively high self-esteem that is destroying the nation. Millions of people felt they deserved that house so they lied on their application, thousands of brokers felt they deserved that fat commission so they helped fudge the figures to push it through, thousands of RRE agents felt they deserved that big 6% so they pressured the appraisers to hit the figure, and on and on.

High self-esteem without values or accomplishment quickly morphs into self-destructive self-seeking sociopathic behaviour. I.E. the behaviour of much of California in the recent real estate market. In light of this is it necessarily a bad thing if a country has a more humble approach to things, copies rather than innovates, and keeps personal and societal self-esteem on a more modest footing? Will a country that emulates with humility eventually outclass a country that innovates with braggadocio?

[MsParker]

Many countries have immigrants who come through the borders, live there for 20+ years, buy property, raise their children there, and go on to help their new country develop and grow by blending with the existing culture - learning the language, adopting the customs and so on.

These same people, and their children, get a nice new passport at the end of the process (it can take up to 7 years in Canada...), and become citizens of their adopted country.

The same process might "cure" the 1:5 ratio of foreigners "problem".

[Sheikh N Bake]

The US with arrogance? Right-wing politicians, yes. Economic/techonological arrogance? You haven't seen that until you've lived in Japan. Not to mention racial.

Korea too. There's a country that's not ready as a people for global commerce. ONE American cow had mad-cow disease years ago, and a few months ago about one million Koreans protested in the streets to prohibit any US beef entering the country. Now, Korean newspapers tell the people that the iPhone is a piece of junk and they should buy only Korean handsets. I'm not exaggerating.

[Smallbore]

It might, but it is unlikely to happen. The paper today announced that Government employees are getting another 70% pay rise - they had one last year too. Which means that graduates with a diploma only, if they work in for instance the Municipality or the Police Force, may be earning close to 35 or 36 K dirhams a month, when you add on all the benefits.
[Me, with my MA and years of international experience, I get 22K plus benefits on a contract with (in practice) no security]. Most private businesses cannot compete with this. Plus, it is very difficult to sack an Emirati employee unless they really behave badly. Now under the circumstances, why would any moderately intelligent Emirati chose to innovate, take risks, invest their own money in a new product that might or might not succeed, when he or she can get a government job that doesn't challenge them very much, leaves their afternoons free and which makes them very comfortably off indeed? Where I work we try to employ our Diploma graduates as administrative assistants, but cannot keep them as they get 3 times as much pay elsewhere with less effort. I can't blame them. There are innovative and highly intelligent Emiratis around, who love their work, and I have many students with that potential, but they don't need to be.

[jdl]

From The Observer Dec 21, 2009

Trading on Soft Lines
By Saleh Al Shaibany



Six million expats to leave the Gulf?

AT a recent regional press conference, I was surprised to learn that the GCC countries were secretly planning to scale down 40 per cent of its expatriate population. That would mean at least six million foreign workers would leave the Gulf by the end of 2015.

Where would the Gulf countries get six million nationals in five years to replace these jobs? We know that this is a pipedream, with all due respect to our manpower planners. With the exception of Saudi Arabia, the entire population of the other five GCC states is about six million, if you exclude expatriates.

The government planners are saying that the six states have been experiencing �an unprecedented baby boom� in the Gulf in the last fifteen years. They are worried, these officials add, about the local population explosion in the future. It raises questions whether the statistics they keep are really authentic or it is just a bureaucratic obligation that lacks accuracy. If you remove six million people in countries that are economically expanding at a much faster pace than most Asian nations, then you take away half of the skills out of the region.

You also take away billions of dollars a year from the local markets that are normally spent on food, furniture, rent, clothing and entertainment. You don�t need statistics to think about the empty blocks of flats and other housing units that will be vacant.

The move would also create ghost areas in places like Dubai and Muscat that are frequented by expats. Yet, the same economic planners are building $60 billion railway lines linking all GCC states. Who will build these tracks and run the trains? Most of all, who would travel in them? The majority of the GCC nationals have their own cars and don�t need trains to travel.

Then cast your thoughts to the unskilled workers which we will miss. Think of the overpowering smell of the sewerage, the piles of the rubbish and the dirty streets that these expatriates will leave behind. The list will be endless because I see very few jobs that GCC nationals entirely dominate.

Well, the real reason, I suspect is the erosion of the local culture that some government officials are worried about, not really about creating jobs. If human resources is the issue here, then the GCC will need fifty years so the region can entirely depend on its human resources to do everything. I suspect even then, the Gulf nationals will still need expatriates to do manual jobs.

But the fear of the erosion of local cultures is unfounded. Forty years since the serious arrival of expatriates in the Gulf, nationals still observe their cultures and foreign workers, to be fair, make no attempt to exert their influence. If the baby boom phenomenon is true, then it is good news for the Gulf.

It will mean outweighing the expatriate population when they do the count ten years from now. Instead of bowing to pressure from some certain quarters, GCC legislators should be grateful that the region still has not lost its pulling power for the best working brains in the world.

The other blessing is that local children grow up to learn to adapt better with other nationals. It is part of their growing up education. Before the arrival of expatriates, the region was isolated from the rest of the world. Its emergence as an economic bloc of some power is due to foreign workers, and not just oil wealth. I hope the plan to remove millions of foreign workers from the GCC states will not pass. The region cannot lose all that talent, whether skilled or unskilled, without paying a price.

[veiledsentiments]

[norwalkesl]

[veiledsentiments]

It's more like being out of touch with reality... or horribly skewed priorities

But, it is an interesting idea to tie it to the US obsession with "self-esteem." It is another of those terms that makes me cringe every time I hear it.

VS

[Sheikh N Bake]

I agree with VS here. Americans in general need to get in touch with some old Asian values which happen to coincide also with certain select Puritan virtues from my good old homeland of New England: work hard, get educated, save. I think the US is a very hard-working society, unlike, say, continental western Europe, where the religion is leisure, but we also work hard at living way beyond our means. However, latest stats show the savings rate at something like 16% thanks to the economy. Let's hope it stays that way.

[seven seas]

[007]

[norwalkesl]

EOM

[norwalkesl]

[veiledsentiments]