‘Hidden’ expatriates: international mobility in the United Arab Emirates as a challenge to current understanding of expatriation

Abstract

Expatriates are often assumed to have enhanced terms and conditions and, because that makes them expensive, to be in key managerial or technical specialist roles. Employees who come from abroad and are in more manual or even menial roles are usually referred to as ‘migrants’. However, there are millions of people around the world who are not migrants, their intended sojourn in a foreign country is seen by them and their employers as temporary, but their employment contracts are far from advantageous compared with those of locals. These ‘hidden’ expatriates are brought into focus in the emerging Arab Gulf States. In some of these countries, the population consists mainly of expatriates, with the local population a small minority: These expatriates include many in lower‐management or manual or menial jobs. We demarcate these expatriates from organisationally assigned expatriates, self‐initiated expatriates and migrants. We use qualitative data from such expatriates in the United Arab Emirates to explore the issues this raises for governments, employers and the expatriates – and for our understanding of the phenomenon of expatriation.

Talent management in Covid-19 crisis: how Dubai manages and sustains its global talent pool

“…Its population grew by 2019 to an astounding 3,355,900. Table 1 summarizes the number of the population by nationals and expatriates from 2017-2019, a development that was almost exclusively due to the increasing number of expatriates (Haak-Saheem and Brewster 2017). Most recent government reports show that Dubai has been particularly successful in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in advanced technology and specialized talent via the international labour market.…”

“…These domestic companies are, almost by definition, owned by local Emiratis but employ a high number of expatriates. The organizational hierarchy reflects to a great extent the social order in the Emirates, with Western expatriates reporting directly to the Emirati bosses, then Arab and Asian middle managers and a high number of mainly Asian blue-collar workers (Haak-Saheem and Brewster 2017).…”

Organizational Learning of Absorptive Capacity and Innovation: Does Leadership Matter?

“…For example the majority of the employees in the private sector are expatriates with a temporary employment contract and the resident visa is connected to their work contract, whereas, most of the nationals prefer to work in the public sector (Forstenlechner and Mellahi, ). Most recent research (see, for example, Haak‐Saheem and Brewster, ) shows that financial incentives are the most important motivation for different groups of expatriates to relocate to the Gulf countries; in this sense, expatriates are highly mobile and move to new jobs, if the new offer is financially more rewarding. Hence, employee retention is a major challenge for many organizations in contexts like the one under study.…”

“…Moreover, the rapid economic and social development has created a large demand for foreign employees. Given the rapid emerging economy of the UAE and its demographic and social characteristics, organizations offer very different nature of jobs to a wide breath of expatriates (Haak‐Saheem and Brewster, ; Haak‐Saheem et al ., ). However, the government aims to enhance the national participation in the workforce by enforcing localization policies (UAE Vision 2021, n.d.).…”

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“…The nonoil‐based sector of the economy is dominated by multinational companies (e.g., insurance, banking, healthcare, hospitality, and international trade), and many jobs are therefore advertised internationally. Furthermore, the UAE labor market is highly diverse and most employees are currently expatriates; more than 80% of the jobs are filled by non‐Emiratis, and these expatriates come from many countries (Haak‐Saheem & Brewster, ). Simultaneously, there is momentum to move in a contrasting direction such that UAE federal and local governments are pursing ‘Emiratization’ (i.e., localization) as a serious agenda in public and private sector organizations (Haak‐Saheem & Brewster, ).…”