Unemployed expats flee Dubai to avoid jail
Like rats abandoning a sinking ship, the Dubai exodus continues apace, much to the delight of the doom-mongering media which is stuffed with stories of expats streaming en masse back to their countries. This story from Digital Journal explores the reasons behind the stats and some unexpected side effects.
The recent spate of redundancies triggered by the global recession, coupled with high rents and some irresponsible lending, has left many overseas workers jobless and over their heads with debt. With so many construction projects being postponed or cancelled this problem can only be expected to grow.
Dubai is not a good place to find yourself in debt. In Dubai, as in Victorian Britain, debtors unable or unwilling to pay what they owe can be imprisoned under Shariah law. Two years ago forty two per cent of inmates in Dubai’s central jail were there because they had defaulted on bank loans.
Consequently, rather than trying to tough it out and hope for a change in fortunes, when money starts to get tight unemployed expatriates are choosing to use the last of their money to buy their passage home.
Taking into account the fact that Dubai’s employment law only grants redundant foreign workers a single month to find a new job before they join the fifteen hundred people who have their visas cancelled on a daily basis, it is no wonder that the Dubai police find themselves having to deal with an epidemic of cars, complete with keys and apologetic notes, abandoned at Dubai airport.
Related posts:
- The rise, fall and salvation of Dubai
- Dubai government moves to stabilise economy
- Dubai scales down growth and records its first budget deficit
- Abu Dhabi leaves Dubai dangling over debts
- Dubai aiming to spend its way out of recession
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