The Major Aspects of the Emiratisation Industry - Research Paper Example

Emiratisation Industry Research Background The and history of the industry. The industry in question isthe ‘Emiratisation’ industry. The name of the industry carries a symbolic value and is an indication of the industry’s patriotic goals. Emiratisation is the practice of trying out different methods of increasing the percentage of indigenous personnel in the workforce of the United Arab Emirates. It is carried out using various initiatives and programs, almost all of which are government-sponsored, that are intended towards increasing the participation of Emiratis in employment mechanisms, raising the level of education of the youth, providing vocational training and education to Emiratis and providing incentives to firms operating in the UAE to induct more of the indigenous population into their workforces. While the concerted push by the UAE government towards these targets is quite new, initiatives for local employee preference were first started in 1994 by Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Since then there has been increasing need for and interest in the exploration of the subject, and the government recognized the field as part of the national agenda for 2009 allocating a large part of the developmental budget to it. The scope and importance of the industry. Until a few years ago by far the largest part of the make-up of Emiratisation drive used to come solely from direct governmental action. However because of the strategic approach to Emiratisation since 2008, the secondary routes to the objective are starting to take hold and private and public corporate entities now govern about half of the initiatives of Emiratisation (Al-Ali 365). As an industry Emiratisation programmes have now spread across a plethora of industrial sectors with the leading sectors for Emiratisation being ports and shipping, oil production, banking and teaching. The target company of this project, DP World, comes from the ports and shipping industry. While the private companies are now starting to induct Emiratis as part of their Emiratisation schemes the huge majority of related schemes still lie with the public sector. The Industry is vital to the central long-term target of UAE administration which is post-oil and non-trade economic stability of the country. In this regard it is imperative that the government takes steps, much like the Saudi administration (Mashood et al.) to cause a cultural change in society and work out as a nation to transcend from a population of ‘takers-to-makers’. While the industry could also serve as a launching pad for the government for exporting indigenous talent to all over the globe after specialization of the training machinery, it will inevitably be hard for the state to entice non-governmental organisations and for-profit corporations into inducting untrained and under-qualified staff as that would adversely affect the productivity of the companies. Objectives and scope of this report. The report covers all the major aspects of the industry in an overall qualitative fashion. This report is intended to serve as an insight to the atmosphere, magnitude and nature of the industry in which the target company of this project, DP World, operates. The utmost specific objective of this report is the enlightenment of the reader and the researcher with regards to the stability, progress and spread of the Emiratisation sector. The researcher should know about the characteristic trends of the industry, factors affecting it and its impact on the local, national and global scales. Special emphasis is paid on the economic and employment impact of the progress of the Emiratisation sector with support for the analysis using interpretation of statistical data. Methods Brief description. The methods for carrying out the investigation are both primary and secondary research; however no quantitative data has been collected using the primary approach. In terms of the primary research, government officials were contacted via email and phone to describe their views about the overall progress, success and future direction of the Emiratisation program. The main method of research is the use of a computer for collection of most of the information and all data. A third method of input for the research could be regarded as the researcher’s own opinion and experience of the visible effect on society of Emiratisation programs as the writer might be connected to a sector the Emiratisation initiatives heavily rely on – the education sector. Television and print media analysis could also have served as potential conduits for collection of data however while these media were consulted for support information, there was no formal inclusion of these methods into the formal research methodology. Research instruments and data sources used. In order to restrict the workload and hence the scope of this research, electronic resources and research instruments were used almost exclusively. The main instrument of qualitative and quantitative research was the internet. However peer input and academic library resources were also utilized to accumulate information. Some of the sources used for the collection of qualitative information and data include online academic journals, online news media, corporate websites, government websites, statistical databases, research articles, electronic books, emails and the researcher’s own previous work. A selection of office-work software were utilised to gather and organize the data and a computer database of all the accumulated information was maintained during the research. Challenges faced during data collection and how these were overcome. It is hard to authenticate data collected from online resources. Cross-checking of data like figures was employed to avoid inclusion of bogus data in the analysis. One issue with the Emiratisation sector’s private section is that the companies involved are largely profit-based and the information provided by them is often skewed towards a hefty appraisal of the size and reputation of the company and statistics are hand-picked to suit serve the utility of advertisement potential that professional-looking data provides. In this regard caution was taken in verification of information available on companies’ websites and this method of data collection was usually avoided from the start. Instead information about firms’ performance in the industry was taken from websites that provide business insights such as Business Monitor. Another challenge during the information-gathering phase was choosing from the knowledge that was available suitable information on which the analysis of the research could be based. This was an issue because a careless selection of data sources could have led to a great degree of bias error even if the analysis was accurate based on the chosen sources. Therefore care was taken to include companies from various sectors, of various sizes to be used for industrial climate analysis and local and international news sources and journal research articles were assessed from their respectable perspectives. The largest problem faced during the preparation of data for analysis was related to the unavailability and confidentiality of the data. As stated in an earlier section the Emiratisation sector is by and large a government run sector. Hence the significant statistical and qualitative reviews are carried out by governmental departments or contracted firms. This makes the data hard to access and the transparency and ease of access to data as in the case of private enterprises is absent. There was no tangible solution to this problem and most of the governmental data was accessed using secondary resources. Results and Discussion Visual Representation of Assessments. When the government of the UAE started taking steps to further the induction of the UAE nationals into the national workforce, the main emphasis was on enabling the firms to benefit from the inclusion of more locals into their organizations. However it became clear after more than a decade of static policies that most if not all of the problem lied in the improper preparation of the citizens for qualification for corporate positions. Hence the sector started looking towards assistance from vocational training institutes for skill training of the unemployed UAE’s indigenous populous. However it was again evident after stagnation in the progress of the employment programs that training would have to start from the academia. Unfortunately until 2010 the initiatives taken by the government and national NGOs did not bear fruit. This was especially relevant to the private sector where there was no virtual change in the citizens’ employment figures even though unprecedented amounts of government resources were now being directed towards the education sector which peaked out at 2.6 billion dollars in 2010, which was more than 22.5% of the overall budget of the state ("UAE cabinet approves record Dh43.6 billion federal budget for 2010, UAE-US agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation."). Out of the magnanimous government spending on education and training of the potential Emiratis workforce, many initiatives and firms have arisen which form the base of the Emiratisation industry now. The largest and notable initiatives in this field are Tawteen UAE, ENDP, EIBFS and the Abu Dhabi Tawteen Council. Listed next are the placement figures for these organizations that paint a picture of where this industry is coming from and where it is headed: Figure 1 Placement Figures (in percentage). Courtesy UAE, Heritage, Emiratisation. The National Newspaper Online. Web. 27 November 2013. The next figure cites the employment figures for the year 2012 divided into various mutually comparable and incomparable categories. It is evident that the national employment rate is not up to par with the international induction in addition to several other observable facts. Figure 2 Various breakdowns of the unemployment demographics. Source: National Bureau of Statistics, UAE. Finally added to this report is a graph that gives a very accurate account of the ratio of degree enrolment numbers to that of job placement numbers for the year 2011: Figure 3 Student enrollment versus employment. Source: Balakrishnan, Melodena S, Payyazhi Jayashree, and Ian Michael. Etihad: Contributing to the Uae Vision Through Emiratisation. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Ltd, 2011. Internet resource. Analysis. Analyzing the three diagrams of the previous sections makes it easy to understand the dynamics and prospects of the industry from all the important perspectives. A look at the first graph shows that while all the major firms of the industry seem to be making progress, the growth rate is lacking. Also, the employment rates of the trainees of these firms are very low indicating a lack of efficiency of either the training system or the educational system of the local population. The second figure shows the employment rate breakdown with regards to many different parameters. Unfortunately this figure shows not only the disparity in employment figures of the locals versus the international employees but also another predicament: The employment figures for males are drastically disproportionate compared to female professionals for a very cosmopolitan society such as that of the United Arab Emirates. Lastly, the final diagram is a very useful breakdown of the fields of education that provide a high chance of job placement as a function of expertise in the field. This figure was sketched for use in formulating the Economic Vision of 2030 by the UAE government. Overall it is evident from this research that while there are countries that have worse indigenous employment situations, like Saudi Arabia, the UAE government is missing a trick though in the last four months there have been various reports of improvement in Emiratisation successes which may be reflected in next year’s results. Still as already mentioned the drive for Emiratisation is having a profound impact on the funding of the other sectors of the economy with about a fourth of the budget going to education initiatives alone because of the Emiratisation drive. While the push for induction of Emiratis is on, the civil society seems to have missed another major drawback of the rural culture which is a lack of gender equality in the workplace. It is evident that the aforementioned problem is cultural because the largest employers operating in the UAE are global firms with stated goals of equal opportunity employment and statistics to back this claim. Conclusions. It is best to wrap up the lessons of the research in the form of concise and specific points which are as follows: While the public sector drive for Emiratisation has seen some success, the induction levels in the private sector stand at a miserly 0.34% of the workforce (Kerr & England). There is a lot of room for improvement in this industry in the private sector through innovation as no initiative of the private sector has seen any success. Perhaps if the problem of gender equality is addressed it could help the cause of local employment. Firms that employ gender equality as a tactic for Emiratisation could win favour of the government and take lead in the industry. Other sectors have suffered because of the focus on Emiratisation by the government. Government support of firms working in the industry might be curbed. No firm out of the big ones or DP world has been able to capitalise on the high local unemployment figures. The problem identified as the main reason for a lack of progress is the effect of local induction on organization’s efficiencies (Mellahi 85). This can be addressed in many ways although education and training are already been tried with little success. So far there have been no clear solutions to the incorrect direction of the Emiratisation programs; however the one major observation from this study is that a policy of profit or subsidy-based incentives to private organizations has never been employed by the government. So far almost all initiatives, private or public sector, have been state controlled. Hence in a statement, the conclusion from this study is that UAE might have to take a leaf out of the book of capitalism and employ innovative business-based tactics to address the issue. Works Cited Kerr, S. and A. England (2009). UAE to safeguard jobs of nationals. Financial Times. London Mellahi, K. (2007). The effect of regulations on HRM: private sector firms in Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18(1): 85-99. "UAE cabinet approves record Dh43.6 billion federal budget for 2010, UAE-US agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation." UAE News and information - United Arab Emirates. UAE National Media Council, 27 Oct. 2009. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. . Al-Ali, Jasim. "Emiratisation: drawing UAE nationals into their surging economy." International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 28.9/10 (2008): 365-379. Mashood, Neelofer, Helen Verhoeven, and Bal Chansarkar. "Emiratisation, Omanisation and Saudisation–common causes: common solutions?." Proceedings of the Tenth International Business Research Conference, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dubai, 16-17 April. Butterworth Heinemann, 2009. Read More