UAE | Employment
Labour ministry to target 10,000 secretarial posts
Only half of foreign secretaries may be made redundant as the labour ministry may target 10,000 secretarial jobs, says the minister of labour.
- By Samir Salama, Bureau Chief
- Published: 00:00 July 2, 2006
Abu Dhabi: Only half of foreign secretaries may be made redundant as the labour ministry may target 10,000 secretarial jobs, says the minister of labour.
Dr Ali Bin Abdullah Al Ka'abi told Gulf News, it would be "great" if the decision to replace foreign human resources managers and secretaries with UAE nationals creates 10,000 jobs.
Private companies were asked to recruit UAE nationals as human resources and personnel managers and secretaries, which will create 21,536 jobs, including 671 managers.
Those businesses, excluding those in the free zones, are being given 18 months to replace their existing human resources managers with UAE nationals, while no more work permits for secretaries will be issued with immediate effect, according to two decisions signed by Al Ka'abi on June 24.
Al Ka'abi said his first priority was to find appropriate work for 33,000 unemployed UAE nationals registered with Tanmia, the National Human Resources Development and Employment Authority, and the 15,000 new university graduates entering the job market every year.
Though the figure may be considered fairly accurate, unemployed UAE nationals not registered with Tanmia are not included. The minister said he would not know the complete number until figures of the national census are released.
He said even though 300,000 vacancies were created every year, private companies failed to hire just 10,000 UAE nationals. Last year, around 700,000 work permits were issued, he said.
Ahmad Kajoor, assistant undersecretary of the ministry, said though he is not a policy maker he would call the 10,000 jobs "an achievement we would all celebrate."
On how the ministry would implement the decision, Kajoor said all applications for secretarial posts will be studied carefully "but we will not target jobs in small businesses."
"Our goal is to recruit UAE nationals in jobs which offer good salaries and career advancement."
He said that out of 3,000 foreign government relation officers, the ministry has replaced around 1,300 with UAE nationals.
Under the decision, secretaries who hold valid labour cards and are recruited by virtue of job contracts will remain in their jobs until the end of their limited-period contracts or otherwise until the end of the labour cards, "whichever is earlier".
Neither the job contracts nor the labour cards of secretaries will be renewed.
Companies will not be allowed to transfer sponsorship of secretaries and they will not be issued temporary or part-time work permits or mission permits. Secretaries sponsored by their husbands or parents will no longer be issued labour cards.
The decision says that if the UAE nationals are not paid as per the minimum monthly-wages criteria set Dh5,000 for post-secondary school certificate holders, Dh4,000 for secondary school certificate holders and Dh3,000 for those below secondary school education the private companies employing them will not meet the quota criteria.
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