Addressing unemployment among GCC nationals a challenge

The dangers of high levels of unemployment among Gulf Cooperation Council nationals is an issue that worries all six governments, which share a keen desire to avoid the obvious social problems of having large numbers of young people without work. The different states have looked at the challenge from different perspectives, taking into account the different levels of education, training and different proportions of nationals to expatriates.

The challenge is how to get the large number of nationals into the workforce. Until now, government-owned organisations and companies have led the way, but now it is increasingly up to the private sector to rise to the task. The natural way would be for the governments to encourage employers to recruit nationals, possibly using financial incentives to match salaries and encourage the process. Some countries and some sectors have imposed quotas on employers that has certainly resulted in employment, although some of the jobs are just token in nature. However, moving to wider legal bans like limiting the length of an expatriate’s permitted stay in a country would result in substantial economic disruption without much increase in employment.