We have no choice but to seek private sector jobs, Emiratis say

Dubai Badriya Ali's mother stopped talking to her for two weeks when she took up a job at a hypermarket at one of the leading malls in Dubai.

The 40-year-old currently holds the position of cashier manager, but faced opposition from her mother when she took up employment in the retail private sector.

"She thought I was going to be a cashier and sit in front of customers and serve them," Badriya says. "Nowadays, as Emiratis, we have no choice but to seek employment in the private sector because most government jobs are taken and we need money because everything is expensive."

No men, or public

Badriya is from a generation where mentality dictates that women should be relegated to menial office jobs with no interaction with men or members of the public. In her current position, she works an 11-hour split shift late into the evening.

"What I'm doing now leaves most friends of my age shocked," she says. "However, many women are changing their mentality from the idea that we must sit at home."

She adds that although her father was a pearl diver, she was raised in a generation that viewed simple jobs as inferior.

'Emiratis want change'

"My father was a pearl diver and he was a simple man," she says. "It's difficult to get work and there are also stereotypes that Emiratis don't accept simple jobs as cashiers or taxi drivers, for example; but lots of Emiratis want to change this idea."

"Lots of things have changed; we now have Emirati women who are cashiers," she says. "People are getting educated and realising the value and worth of a job, no matter what it is."

Aviation engineering

Badriya's son, Jamal Khalid Rashid Al Ali, is studying aviation engineering at Dubai Men's College and believes his generation's view towards job opportunities has evolved in a positive way.

"What I will be doing is the same as a mechanic in a garage," he says. "I will have to wear overalls, clean the toilets of the plane, check the brakes and change tyres."

He says although some of his peers might think it beneath them to be working in such a position, he enjoys his chosen field.

"I don't see any work as shameful. I find drop-outs who sit at home unemployed taking money from other people shameful."