According to a recent report by GulfTalent.com, salaries in Arabian Gulf countries witnessed an increase of 11.4%, compared to 9% in 2007. Salaries in the UAE enjoyed the highest increment that reached 13.6%, Qatar came second with 12.7%, followed by Oman with 12.1%, Bahrain 10.5%, Kuwait 10.1%, and finally Saudi Arabia with 9.8%.
The report suggests that many factors contribute to salary increases in Arabian Gulf countries, including inflation, dollar exchange rate, salaries increment in India, among many others.
Rents cause big concerns for expats in Gulf, for many people rent eats a lot of their monthly salary, Oman witnessed a serious increment in rents that reached 42%, while in Qatar it was 26%, UAE 25%, Bahrain 18%, Saudi Arabia 17%, and Kuwait 15%. Employees in the construction sector were the luckiest as their salaries witnessed the highest increment that reached 15.1%, while banking 12.2%, and Retail & FMCG at 11.9%.
The UAE seems to be the most attractive country in the Gulf, 66% of expats in GCC wish to relocate to it, and 77% of expats in UAE expressed their wish to remain in the country. 32% of expats in Qatar wish to stay there, while 23% of total expats in GCC wish to move to it. Kuwait and Oman seem to be the less attractive countries in the Gulf, but managed to have a good retention rate of 58% and 46% respectively. Saudi Arabia was an attraction of 14% of total expats in Gulf countries, and came 5th in the retention rate list.
This part is a bit interesting, 90% of the population of the UAE are expats, 90%! Things are similar in Qatar and Kuwait, with 89% of the population in Qatar being expats, and in Kuwait 81%. Asians enjoyed the highest salary increase, followed by Arabs (Non GCC), Western, and finally Arabs (GCC).
The following tables shows some facts about compensation packages, as you can see 30% of the package in Qatar goes for housing allowance, and yet rent eats 40% of the income, which means that your housing allowance in Qatar doesn’t cover your house rent. Same thing goes for the rest of countries, 27% of packages in UAE is allocated for housing, while it eats 34%.
Once in a while you hear or receive an e-mail about the grand conspiracy theory against Muslims, each product contains something against Islam in its name or ingredients, when Coca-Cola was founded more than 100 years ago, an evil team of Satan (marketing dude) and Lucifer (designer), came up with the Coca-Cola name and wrote it this way so when you flip the logo, it reads in Arabic (No Mecca, No Mohamed), as if this means anything! Not only that, they have a secret ingredient, which is extracted from Pigs stomach! Yes that’s the secret of Coke’s great taste, the Pigs! How many freakin’ bottles does Coca-Cola produce every year? How many pigs needed to maintain this great taste!
10 years ago, Nike launched a clothing line, with the word Air written in a way to look like a fire, Muslims raged against this new product cause the logo looked like the name of “Allah” in Arabic, which shouldn’t be placed on a pair of shoe, so Nike, immediately, took a decision that cost millions, and withdrew all shoes from stores, and kept the shirts and pants because it’s fine to have the name of Allah on it.
Today, and after 10 years, I receive this e-mail, a call for Jihad against Nike for putting the name of Allah on its shoes… thank god that we have alerted people, cause Nike decided to place the logo on the back of the shoe so no will notice, yea cause research shows that 94% of Muslims don’t check the back of the shoes when they buy it. Nike knows better about us!
Here is the e-mail:
This is what the ‘NIKE’ company did ….
‘NIKE’ company wrote the name of ‘ALLAH’ on the shoes & from the back so no one will notice this …….
IF YOU ARE A REAL MUSLIM YOU HAVE 2 FORWARD IT DON’T STOP ……
This is got to be the worst decision in the lifetime of the 44-year-old Lalit Kishore Chaudhary, the CEO of the India unit of the Italian group Graziano Trasmissioni, 200 furious mob of dismissed workers have beaten him to death with a hammer, and they left 50 executives and staff members injured, some of them are in intensive care, they also smashed 20 cars inside the compound of the company.
Think twice before such decisions, or take the decision on your way to the plane and take a long vacation.
The Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) has released an interesting report that tackles “The Effect Of Text Messaging On Driver Behaviour”. 17 drivers between 17-24 years old took part in this simulator study, where they were requested to completed one normal drive (undistracted), and another one that included text messaging tasks.
Reading and writing text messages had an effect on participants’ performance, particularly reaction time and ability to maintain lateral vehicle control.
Reaction times were around 35% slower when writing a text message while driving, compared to 12% when driving under the effect of alcohol consumption to the legal limit, and 21% under drugs effect, based on earlier studies by TRL.
Female drivers showed greater variability in lateral lane position when texting than male drivers. However, female participants tended to show greater speed reductions indicating that they may have had greater awareness that their driving was impaired. This study highlighted that when texting, a driver may present a greater accident risk than when at the legal limit for alcohol consumption or when under the influence of cannabis, reinforcing that drivers should refrain from this dangerous activity.
Personally sometimes I do text while driving, but I use the dictionary, and it takes me longer to finish a message while driving than in the normal situation, I know it’s not right to use your mobile while driving but sometimes you have to.
Each participant was asked to write 5 messages while driving on the simulator, you can notice how some of them used shortcuts like: cu to replace see you, or ur - your. You can notice that some of them were so careful about punctuation, could this be a reason for more distraction? (click the table for a clear view)
This is weird, and pretty stupid as well, an Indian man decided to spend 1,000 USD$ on renting an entire cinema to prove that he can watch a horror movie alone! Arabian Business reports that Pavin Ponanna, a 30-year-old Indian advertising professional, decided to challenge the Indian director Ram Gopal Verma who claimed that no one can watch his new movie horror movie “Phoonk” alone without getting scared.
The guy asked the cinema staff to have a doctor on call just in case, but according to him he never felt scared, not even for a moment. Well I guess people should think twice before declaring any challenge!
Once in a while you hear or receive an e-mail about the grand conspiracy theory against Muslims, each product contains something against Islam in its name or ingredients, when Coca-Cola was founded more than 100 years ago, an evil team of Satan (marketing dude) and Lucifer (designer), came up with the Coca-Cola name and wrote it this way so when you flip the logo, it reads in Arabic (No Mecca, No Mohamed), as if this means anything! Not only that, they have a secret ingredient, which is extracted from Pigs stomach! Yes that’s the secret of Coke’s great taste, the Pigs! How many freakin’ bottles does Coca-Cola produce every year? How many pigs needed to maintain this great taste!
