IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/streco/v71y2024icp248-260.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Expatriate jobs and productivity: Evidence from two GCC economies

Author

Listed:
  • Erumban, Abdul.A.
  • Al-Mejren, Abbas

Abstract

The oil-rich GCC economies are increasingly adopting job nationalization policies to create employment for natives. The higher wage rate of natives compared to migrants makes this challenging for private sector firms. This paper analyzes productivity differences between migrants and nationals using detailed industry-level data from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Employing an extended Cobb-Douglas production function, we find that migrant workers have a productivity advantage over nationals. Combined with their lower wages, this results in a lower unit labor cost, making it challenging for private enterprises to shift away from relying on expatriate workers. Long-term, GCC economies need to invest in upskilling natives and fostering a competitive labor market to create productive jobs for natives.

Suggested Citation

  • Erumban, Abdul.A. & Al-Mejren, Abbas, 2024. "Expatriate jobs and productivity: Evidence from two GCC economies," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 248-260.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:71:y:2024:i:c:p:248-260
    DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2024.07.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X24001012
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.strueco.2024.07.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity; Migration; GCC; Diversification; Oil-economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
    • N15 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Asia including Middle East
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • F2 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:71:y:2024:i:c:p:248-260. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/525148 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.