High living cost driving expatriates out of Qatar

THE rent-fuelled inflation that has affected every aspect of life in Qatar has resulted in what the industry analysts have been warning beginnings of an exodus of foreign workforce.

They cite extremely high housing rents, strict labour rules and sponsorship laws and myriad socio-economic factors that are forcing the expatriate employees to look elsewhere for greener pastures.

“I’ve been here only 11 months now, but already have talked twice to my sponsor about sending me back home, with or without an airline ticket, since I just can’t seem to be able to save anything here,” said Zubair, a Sri Lankan, who was found carrying 20 gallons of water refill bottles to a second-floor office that had no elevator.

Zubair said he gets a monthly pay of QR1,000, including accommodation and medical facilities, but the workload demands a 16-hours day, cheap food and virtually no entertainment.

“This is not the life that I signed up for, and I’m not too excited about my on-going two-year contract. I just need to go back home,” said Zubair.

A pharmacist from the Philippines, who’s been working in Qatar for the past 22 months, said: “I came to Doha hoping for great prospects, but am now direly waiting for February when my contract ends, so I can go to some other place.”

She said she studied for the examination to get the licence of a pharmacist, paid all the fees, and QR3,000 a month as salary “sounded good”. The ecstasy did not last long though.

“Out of my total salary, QR2,000 now goes to a small room that I was able to rent near my work-place and another QR500 on food. That leaves me with QR500, which serves no purpose at all,” she said.

Some of those who are not locked in a two-year contract with their employers, and have been here for quite a while, are also “giving up” and moving to other countries in the region.

An Indian chartered accountant, who had been in Doha for the past couple of years, recently moved to Al-Khobar in Saudi Arabia, where he got a better position. He said: “The cost of living is very low in that country, the rent being at least five times lower than what I was paying in Qatar.”

“For a three-bedroom townhouse with amenities and a club swimming pool, I am to pay only less than QR2,000 a month and that just decided it for me and my family,” he said.

His civil engineer compatriot, who has been in Doha for about two years, is relocating to the Industrial city of Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, for the same reasons of better wages, cheaper housing, food and other essentials.

Scores of other skilled and unskilled workers from a host of nations have aired similar sentiments to this correspondent.

‘What has started as a sporadic occurrence of individuals leaving Qatar, could lead to en masse relocation of skilled and unskilled expatriates,” said managing director of Khiyareen Group, Idrees Anwar, who employs close to a 1,000 people.

According to Anwar, during his 25 years’ stay in Qatar, the prices of everything from food to rent to transport have shot up, except wages, in so many cases.

“The low-income workers earning the ‘standard’ QR600, for instance, usually don’t have much option to decide when or whether to go back or relocate, but the skilled workers will,” said Anwar.

Zahid Khan, deputy general manager at Unicon Intl., that employs more than a 1,000 people from Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and other Asian countries, agreed that his employees are having second thoughts on continuing in Qatar.

“Visas for workers from countries with expertise are difficult to get and that has forced us to bring people from remote areas in Asia. By the time we get the paperwork done and train them, a lot of money gets spent. At this point, they want to go back, seeing the situation here,” said Khan, who added that the phenomenon adds up to the contractors’ total project costs as well.

The strengthening of the Indian economy, as well as other Asian countries, is another reason why several expatriates from that country want to go back.

”I was in India just recently to recruit supervisors, engineers, and unskilled workers, but no one was willing to come for the amount of money I was offering them,” said general manager of Satco Intl., M S Bukhari, who pointed out that a mason was not willing to come to Qatar for even QR800 and he ended up hiring some from remote villages.

“With this break-neck pace of development, more skilled workers are heading to Qatar, but if not properly managed, they would simply go back and leave a gaping void,” he said.