The United Arab Emirates’ labour market: an overview

This paper provides an overview of both the quantity and quality of employment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s labour market. It first presents a review of employment regulation, covering legislation that apply to Emirati and migrant workers, as well as to the public and private sectors and details how particular subgroups of workers are treated differently by the existing employment legislation. The discussion shows that employment regulations are significantly more favourable in the public sector. While new labour laws introduced in the private sector are considered a crucial step in the right direction, they are not sufficient to level the playing field between different groups of workers. Second, the paper examines available data from the UAE’s labour force survey and discusses findings from relevant studies, while highlighting problems with data availability and gathering. It identifies key challenges in the UAE labour market. While the UAE performs well in terms of overall employment levels, there are considerable disparities between groups, particularly when data is disaggregated by nationality. Unemployment rates among Emiratis are much higher and participation rates are lower. Yet, employment conditions among Emirati workers are significantly better than those of migrant workers, mainly because they are more likely to work in the public sector. Conversely, non-Emiratis have higher participation rates and lower levels of unemployment, yet their working conditions are significantly worse than those of Emiratis. The paper concludes by discussing the policy implications of these findings.