UAE needs well-skilled expats, says minister

Dubai - Private sector employment in the UAE, where most of the expat population works, was 5.095 million at the end of 2019.

Expatriates in the UAE are well-skilled and the country needs them, said a UAE minister on Thursday.

"We believe that the UAE is a place where expats are well-skilled and we definitely need them. The pandemic is not going to be here for a long time. The world will definitely deal with the pandemic and get rid of it. Then we would regret that we got rid of our skilled workforce, whether it is nationals or expats. We would like to keep them," Abdullah bin Mohammed Belhaif Al Nuaimi, UAE's Minister for Infrastructure Development, told Bloomberg TV in an interview on Thursday.

The minister was replying to a question with reference to a senior Kuwaiti official announcing plans to reduce expat population workforce from 70 per cent to 30 per cent.

On Wednesday, Dr. Khaled Al Fadhel, Kuwait's Minister of Oil and Acting Minister of Electricity and Water, said his country will stop employing expatriates in oil sector including Kuwait Petroleum Corp. and its subsidiaries for year 2020-21 and their numbers would be trimmed.

Al Nuaimi said: "We have given the opportunity for expats to take a long leave if they wish and we supported mega contractors that would actually downsize their workforce."

Data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation shows that the total private sector employment in the UAE, where most of the expat population works, at the end of 2019 was 5.095 million.

waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai