UAE tops Gulf countries in salary rises, and attracts 66% of total expats in the Gulf

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%.

To download the full report click here.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 9:21 am and is filed under Arabia, Interesting, Jazar, Lists, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.