Abstract
Over the last six decades, the reliance of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries’ economy on expatriate workforce has increased incessantly. The majority of the private sector workforce in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are expatriates. Recent attempts by governments in the GCC countries to localise the workforce, through their workforce nationalisation programmes, have offered limited results. Thus, dependence on expatriate workforce will continue in the near future and GCC countries, short of professionally and technically qualified local workers will need to employ a large number of expatriates to support their economic and social development plans. This calls for a systematic approach to understand the specific challenges faced by expatriates of different nationalities in the GCC countries, so that these challenges can be addressed to enable the GCC countries to become a preferred destination for technically and professionally qualified expatriate workers. This paper presents an overview of the GCC countries; the reasons for their dependence on expatriate workforce; key current challenges faced by expatriates in the GCC countries and suggestions for facilitating adjustment of expatriate workers in the GCC countries.
Highlights
This has been necessitated by the fact that about 60 per cent of the local population of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is between the ages of 14 and 27 (Dollman, 2007) and is speedily adding to the increasing number of employment seeking adults
In the public sector workforce, higher participation of the local population has been achieved through lower knowledge and experience requirements for recruits (Al-Ali, 2008; Forstenlechner, 2008)
Growth of Expatriate Workforce in GCC Countries In GCC countries, nationals are a predominant component of government workforce where as expatriates are in majority in the private sector (Forstenlechner, 2008; Keivani, Parsa & Younis, 2003 as cited by Malecki & Ewers, 2007)
Summary
Workers working in a foreign location for more than one year are considered to be expatriate workers. (Richardson & McKenna, 2003). A major section of the work force in GCC is expatriate population derived from different nationalities (Forstenlechner, 2008). This expatriate work force and accompanying family members face specific challenges during their stay in foreign land. Public sector employees are offered better salary, higher job security, lesser work hours, lesser work content and generous holidays (Al-Ali, 2008). This creates a privileged workforce segment of local nationals in public sector with better compensation and less demanding work profile
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