Qatar Employment Survey Results

Press Release

Coming to Qatar Right Decision Say 87.6% of Expatriate Workers
Doha, Qatar 16/08/09

87.6% of expatriate employees in Qatar said they were happy they had come to Qatar, according to a Qatar jobs and employment survey commissioned by the tourist and residents' website Qatar Visitor and run with the assistance of ILoveQatar.net.

The survey, which questioned more than 220 employees working in Qatar, aimed to assess both how people found work in Qatar, and how that work had changed their lives.

Results showed that over 30% of employees found work via the internet, either via online job sites (16.1%), through jobs advertised directly on employment websites (7.2%) or by uploading their CV to websites (7.2%). Agencies accounted for a further 16.6% of positions found. More than a quarter of those who found work in Qatar via agencies claimed they had been illegally charged by those agencies.

The survey also asked why people came to Qatar. While almost half of those surveyed replied that money was the main motivating factor, a sizeable proportion of respondents (28.1%) sought work in Qatar in order to experience a new culture, whilst a smaller proportion (5.3%) were looking for adventure.

The majority of workers surveyed were well-educated, with 57.2% having a graduate or a post graduate degree. Only 1.8% of respondents claimed no qualification at all.

As is to be expected, the majority of those coming to Qatar experienced a sharp increase in salary. Before coming to Qatar, the largest income group (23.5%) earned between 501 and 1000 dollars per month. After relocating to Qatar, this group fell to 11.8%. In contrast, there was a sharp increase in the next two income groups, with the proportion of those earning from 1001-2000 dollars a month increasing from 13.7% to 25.7%, and the proportion of those earning 2001 - 4000 dollars a month more than doubling from 12.4% to 25.7%.

Qatar Visitor editor Philip Beech stated:

"The majority of our users come to Qatar Visitor looking for work. We hope that the results of this survey will help give them ideas of how to look for work in Qatar, who is likely to find work in Qatar and also what to expect when they get here."

CEO of I Love Qatar, Khalifa Saleh, added:
"The results clearly show that there is increased usage of online portals by those seeking jobs in the Middle East. It's undoubtedly going to increase in popularity in the future.

"Unfortunately, the results also show that there is a greater need for the regulation of employment agencies."

To view the full results of the survey, visit the Qatar Visitor Employment Survey.

Kindly Supplied by:
Qatar Visitor, which is part of the Soccerphile Group, is a comprehensive online tourist and resident guide to Qatar, with a particular emphasis on employment and finding work in Qatar.

Contact: Philip Beech (Editor)
philip@qatarvisitor.com

Dust Storm Boosts Revenue for Car Washes.

After a week of being shrouded under the thick blanket of our most recent dust storm, to the delight of Qatar's residents, the air has finally cleared. Leaving the cars of the country coated in the dusty remnants.
Thick plumes of dust blew down from Iraq across Kuwait, Bahrain and the Gulf in a south easterly direction, engulfing Qatar on the 30th of July. Iraq is no stranger to dust storms, but for numerous reasons the twenty-first century has seen an increase in dust activity . Some causes include regional drought, water diversion, desertification, and power shortages that interfere with irrigation systems. The combination of these factors has led to a buildup of dust in Iraq that can be lofted into the atmosphere by even slight winds.
This is bad news for Qatar's proud car owners. Car owners in this country are consistently trying to keep their cars clean and shiny. Quite a conundrum when it is literally raining dust. Now that the air has cleared car owners are queueing to have the sandy deposits washed off their cars.
This is good news for car washing facilities. The car washes have seen a real surge in business over the past few days, with queues in some cases exceeding 45 minutes. To compound the problem, earlier this year we saw the closure of the many car washing shops in the Al Markhiya area, which was known for it's abundance them. People are now looking around for new places to wash their cars.
The problem doesn't end there. The prices at the remaining car wash shops has skyrocketed. Before you could get your car jack-washed for around 25 riyals, whereas now some places are charging up to 50 riyals for an SUV.
The world may be suffering from mass desertification whilst at the same time drowning in the global recession, all the while Qatar's car washing shops are laughing all the way to the bank.