The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is dependent on expatriate workers, mostly from the Indian subcontinent, is planning to introduce a number of measures to make the recruitment of unskilled expatriate manpower a "costly" affair, The Times of India reported Tuesday.
A recent planning ministry study indicated that the UAE has a 1.4 million strong foreign workforce, the Indian newspaper said, adding that the study specified three major problems - demographic imbalance, increasing number of foreign workers who represent 90 percent of the total workforce and a dependence on unskilled workers, mainly Asians.
According to the report, till April this year Asians comprised 87.1 percent of the UAE's private sector workforce. Indians topped the list, forming 53.7 percent of the workforce, followed by Pakistanis with 18 percent, other Asians 15.4 percent and Arabs only 10.6 percent.
Acording to 1996 staistics, only 19 percent of the country’s 2.4 million population are nationals, meanwhile 50 percent are Asians and 23 percent are Arabs – (Several Sources)
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