Dubai is building high-profile projects, where thousands of workers are working to finish the projects on time. New projects for Rs 1,50,000 crore were announced by master developers during the last two weeks, on top of projects for Rs 4,00,0000 crore that are in various stages of execution, according to the report in the Gulf News. Some companies have gone as far as to announce that they would bear the cost of processing workers’ passports.

“Most contractors have lowered their fees and some companies have waived the visa fee,” Mr Fahbin Anwar, Director of Azhar Al Sharq management consultants, was quoted as saying in the paper. “Some companies have now gone ahead to bear the cost of processing workers’ passports and other formalities — such is the extent of demand.”

The hunt for labourers for the UAE is particularly focused on South Asian countries, given their cultural and historical links with the Middle East region. And the favourite in South Asia is India. “India is the top destination and about 80 per cent of our workers are from India,” Bishoy Azmi, chief executive of Al Shafar General Contracting LLC, was quoted as saying.

Top recruitment officials are frequently travelling to India to lure workers, who are shying away due to high inflation and the decreasing value of the dirham against a strong rupee, which make the UAE labour market less attractive, according to the report.

All this should spell good news for Kerala, which has long been struggling with the problem of unemployment. A recent study by K.C. Zachariah and S. Irudaya Rajan, two demographers at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), reported a modest but consistent acceleration in the remittances from abroad received by Kerala during the last four years.

The State received Rs 24,500 crore as external remittance in 2006-’07. This forms 20 per cent of Kerala’s Net State Domestic Product (NSDP). Remittances have not kept pace with the growth of NSDP¯in 2003 remittances were 22 per cent of the GDP while it was about 25 cent earlier.

According to the demographers, migration from Kerala appears to be entering a mature phase. The proportion of Kerala households reporting a Non-Resident Keralite (NoRK) among them has remained the same in 2007 as in 2003, which is 25.8 per cent. There is also a decline in the number of Keralites migrating to other States within the country in this period.

According to Zacharia and Rajan, the demographic transition, manifested in the decline of the proportion of the people in the age group 15-24, could be one of the reasons for the decline in the out-migration rate from the State.

Future demands in the Gulf region will be for categories of skilled workers, technicians, computer workers, heavy equipment operators, electrical workers and professional categories such as doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers and accountants. The future emigrants from Kerala should be equipped to meet the changing demand for migrant labour in the UAE, the authors concluded.

Thus the more skilled workers and professionals will perhaps have an edge in gaining employment there. The glory days of labour migration appear to back again.

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

More Stories on : Human Resources | Real Estate & Construction | Random Walk

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page