Nepalese benefit from UAE freeze on Indian labour

DUBAI, SEPT 6: Nepalese workers are being preferred over Indians in hotels and private companies in UAE a month after it freezed the recr...

DUBAI, SEPT 6: Nepalese workers are being preferred over Indians in hotels and private companies in UAE a month after it freezed the recruitment of unskilled labour from the Indian subcontinent.

Companies scouting for labour in the UAE are turning to Nepalese labour force who have the reputation of being honest and hardworking, the Gulf News daily said quoting recruitment agencies and private company officials.

Following the freeze, to bring about a balance in the nationalities mix in the country’s population, several Indians who had were offered employment were refused visas and many companies have been told to recruit either from within the United Arab Emirates or nationalities other than Indian and Pakistani.

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A Nepalese recruitment agent told the Gulf News that his business had shot up after the ban. It has gone up by 30 per cent in the last month. I have recruited more than 500-600 Nepalese workers in August’ he said.

The agent said the preference for Nepalese labour began since ayear back. Companies prefer Nepalese because they are honest and hardworking’.

The daily quoted Tirtsa Raj Wagle, second secretary at the Nepal Embassy in Riyadh as saying that nearly 15,000 Nepalese had been recruited into the Gulf market in the last two years.

The Nepalese, numbering about 13,000 currently in the UAE, are mostly employed as construction workers, security guards, plumbers, carpenters and waiters.

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Wagle said the number of Nepalese in Qatar and Saudi Arabia had shot up after similar bans. There are about 45,000 Nepalese in Saudi Arabia and 30,000 in Qatar, he said.

The hotel industry is the latest sector which is forced to take in Nepalese workers.