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Is it possible that the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country notorious for abusing foreign workers, is more liberal than the United States on some immigration policies? Or so it seems?
If you define things very narrowly, they are!
This revolves around a term I’ve never seen before: “Emirateization,” reported by a publication I knew nothing about, harrij times Dubai (I read English), and a currency that was foreign to me, the UAE dirham, worth about 27 cents.For better and longer program descriptions than those found in newspapers, see here.
What the UAE does what the US does no The thing to do is fine employers who don’t (albeit very, very slowly) replace foreign workers with domestic workers. The monthly fine for not doing so is Dh6,000, which equates to about $1,600 per month per required worker. The process of replacing foreign workers with local workers is called Emiratisation.
The requested percentage is very, very modest. It grows at a rate of 2% per year until reaching a target of 10% by 2026. The fines are monthly fines for the violating employer, and by my calculations, the level of fines increases at a rate of $270 per month. Violations continue.
Employers’ initial target is one Emirati skilled worker for every 50 foreign skilled workers; by 2026, there will be 5 Emirati skilled workers for every 50. There does not appear to be a requirement to work with unskilled Emirati workers, so the new rules do not appear to require any Emirati to be in these jobs.
In contrast, the U.S. system imposes no penalties on employers who do not hire U.S. workers — withIn fact, the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program does just the opposite, using money that would otherwise go into the Medicare and Social Security systems to reward employers for hiring recent foreign college graduates. (The subsidy for these employers takes the form of an exemption from paying the usual payroll tax for these foreign workers.)
Comment. The UAE government gently encourages employers to offer certain types of jobs to its citizens, while U.S. employers are rewarded for hiring foreigners.
Two more things stood out to me about this project. First of all, it’s blatantly class biased; working class Emiratis don’t get any favors. In a sense, we have something similar going on; there is a limited number of H-1Bs per year, but there is no limit to the number of H-2A farm worker arrivals.
Second, and more positively, a system of increasing fines per month is more punishing than most of the U.S. labor market. We tend to look backwards and correct past mistakes. Then the employer pays some fees and the case is closed.
In the UAE, employers pay increasingly high fines and know that if the situation is not rectified immediately, they will be in more financial distress in the future; this is a forward-looking enforcement policy – ​​if it is actually enforced.
The author thanks an American informant who followed these matters on the Internet.
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