Dubai’s mess of pottage

Of a city-state built on sand and credit,
detractors have long asked which will give way first.
Unfortunately, for the nation’s youth, the answer may be neither.

Those arriving at Dubai International Airport would be well advised to make sure they visit the restrooms before joining the queue at passport control.

As you inch ponderously towards the desk you’d be forgiven for wondering why the pace is so slow. No third-world backwater this with paper lists to check or make-work red tape to clear. The desks are efficient and computerised. Those operating them, on the other hand, are not so efficient.

Welcome to Emirati youth.

 

The entitled generation

A recent front-page report in the Khaleej Times, covered the end of the UAE Careers 2013 job fair with the headline “Young Emiratis struggle to find jobs“. The first interviewee in this story tells of sitting at home and looking for work for several months. She also tells of turning down a Dh6,000 salaried call centre job because she wants to use the skills she was trained for and because it doesn’t pay enough to live comfortably.

Hmmmm.

To jaded “western” eyes this story is an all-to-familiar one, of an “entitled” generation who believe their bright, shiny future should be handed to them on a plate rather than them having to work hard for it. If you can’t do what you want – and even in the good times career-freshers often can’t – then you do what you can to make a start. Instead we seem to have a generation emerging from education who expect to start out at the CEO’s right-hand.

They get awfully petulant when they find out life doesn’t work that way.

The interviewee in the Khaleej Times story claims it’s hard to get a job if you don’t have a senior contact in the company. She presumably views this as a failing of the company rather than the simple value of a personal character reference which is true of the job market the world over.

Faced with two graduate candidates, one who had been sitting on their backside for months since leaving university and another who had been scrubbing toilet bowls to pay their own way, to make their own money and to take responsibility for themselves, speaking as an occasional recruiter I’d be taking bog brush boy every time. Set against the indignities many young job-seekers have to face in the current global economy with its record-breaking youth unemployment, that call-centre job was a peach. Moreover, taking it would show a healthy attitude. Or at least conceal an unhealthy one.

A recent article in The Economist highlighted the continuing trend of young Emiratis ending up in the bloated public sector as a result of their ongoing difficulties in finding private sector roles. Which explains the staffing you’ll often encounter at passport control; an experience that does little to refute my somewhat dismissive initial view of the Emirati youth work ethic.

 

The cuckolded generation

My view though is at least partly unfair for one very big reason. Of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai in particular wasn’t built but bought. Less than 10% of the population are local citizens and this economy has rapidly reached its size and scale by importing everything it needs. Unlike countries with a more organic growth profile much of the private economy has developed without the culture of bringing in fresh graduates and training them up. The cycle of starting freshers to replace retirees hasn’t had time to develop – job-leavers fly home as their trained replacements fly in.

Moreover, given the massively distorted demographic, surely few businesses are motivated to run graduate recruitment programmes as there are too few locals to make it worthwhile. And even if they did they may well run up against a bizarre and rather ironic team-fit problem. Emiratis in Dubai are foreigners in their own land and would be a conservative drop in a liberal and internationalised sea of other workers. The locals are the cultural outsiders here.

 

The sold-out generation

From the window of my hotel room I can see a billboard from which Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum gazes benevolently down on his country. Only from the ground beneath it doesn’t seem to be his country anymore but one which belongs to the melee of world citizens he has imported in the name of progress and in the name of growth.

Nor does he seem to be gazing benevolently on his nation’s youth, or perhaps there are just too few of them for him to notice.Their homeland seemingly usurped as a profit-engine for global business and pleasure-engine for global tourists, one wonders how much longer they will meekly sideline themselves into the public sector. Will they ever want to do something about taking their homeland back?

It seems to me that, when compared to other countries, while Emirati youth may have comfortable lives they have a rough deal making those lives their own. While I’m no fan of market-distorting affirmative action laws, maybe the benevolent sheik would be wise to call in a few favours from the many global businesses he’s allowed to profit from his nation and make them take local graduate recruitment more seriously.