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PASSPORT: determines the salary for any expat????


Donnabelle I had an argument with my friend the other day because he was insisting that if somebody holds a passport from UK,USA,CANADA,AUSTRALIA and EU then they get a high paying job regardless of any other qualifications passport according to him serves a lot in finding a high paying job!??? What do you think?
hamadl I agree with your friend, that happens in most companies. In the UAE, either that or a UAE passport :wink: yujinn Yes it's true. Only those who didn't experience this kind of discrimination would disagree- mainly those from the countries you mentioned. hamadl everyone knows it but they just dont want to admit it, i am a UAE national and i know how the system is in this country, anyone who worked/lived in Dubai should know that this is how it works.. Maybe they just like to think that they are the best so they say that there is no discrimination, they might like it,.. no offence guys, im just saying what i think.. Medvezhonok Yup, when I came to Dubai I just threw my Canadian passport at my job interviewer which made him bow down and offer me a position as Vice President of the company. I angrily replied that, as a Canadian, I would accept nothing less than a job as CEO, to which he promptly apologized for his rudeness and gave me the position. He then offered to come to my house and do my laundry (which is also a normal service provided to holders of US, Canadian, EU etc. passports). Al Jon
If a company can find someone from a country where wages are cheaper, and that person can do the same job, they do it. Why do you think companies in America, US, Canada, UK etc outsourced all of their manufacturing overseas?
A company that chooses to employ someone for twice the price of what it should cost, isn't going to be able to compete...
If a company here decides that the locals don't have the experience to perform that particular role, then they will go for another option.
Also, remember that it takes a certain amount of $$ to lure foreign talent into Dubai, why the hell would we come here for less money than what we would make back home, when we have better beaches, services, medical facilities and our familes.
Face it.....80% of Dubai is made up by expats, and we don't come here for the lifestyle. westside ur frend is a 100% rite gtmash
^^Not too far from the truth, although the details have been smudged.
Also, immigration-liberal Canada are not AS valuable as other Western countries, since the employers have occassionally been disappointed to see a Christian Canada-settled Indian guy show up for a job interview based on the passport, as some have written in the papers.
As Sage would say = :wink: hamadl
I agree with most of your points, but:
Im not saying that UAE nationals built dubai or that expats dont deserve it, UAE nationals get paid better (that is a fact since we are in UAE), but out of the expats, certain nationalities get paid better and companies do go for those nationalities if they find them..
why do they do it? certain nationalities would get a ban for 6 months if they leave their job to join another, so they would stay and not look for another job.
Is it right? NO, its not (in my opinion) but thats the way it is.. jabbajabba I can only really speculate on the industry I know well which is telecoms. Now I know that a lot of Europeans (and US & Canadian) will tell a company what to do with a job offer if they can make more money back home without the stresses of Dubai. They just won't accept as there is a lot of work around. I recently put a recruitment clerk in touch with a colleague and he simply said he would no way consider the offer as the hassle of selling up and moving across the world were just not worth it. Where as a lot of workers from South Asia will say 'Yes'. As someone who has tried to recruit I have seen this first hand - and a company is not likely to say 'You know if you ask for more, we may well give it to you, go on its worth a try!'. However, without sounding bleak things are slowly changing. As I say I only know the IT / Telecoms sector - but Bangalore is booming and Salary levels for admins, developers, qa testers etc are increasing at quite a rate. We find it hard to keep people as there is a large pool of companies employing. Where as Dubai salaries rarely rise inline with inflation (rents, and costs of living). So a lot of people are realising they can do better back at home. Its got that way for me now.

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raidah yes it does...unfortunately. with my eastern euro passport, unless i get lucky, ill never have the same salary as a western, regardless how much experience i have or how many languages i speak. gtmash
That is correct. It is also correct that a lot of Indians who come here accept low salaries, although I can sympathise that circumstances drive them to accept anything they get. But sadly this reduces the value of Indians who actually are looking for higher pay. Multiple sides to this thing. Al Jon
Thats because, in engineering for example, you are unlikely to have reached the educational standards that a Western European country would provide or have worked on large international projects (due to lack of large Eastern European companies).
Now I have worked with a few Eastern European engineers, and they were great at their job. They also got paid appropriately for it. Often companies would rather pay a premium for a certain standard than to take a risk, so in some respects I agree with you.
But hey, look at the prosperity joining the EU has done for the East....growth rates of double the rest of Western Europe. Al Jon
With a capacity of a billion low skilled workers they are hardly going to be able to set themselves a salary which is significantly better than back home...supply exceed demand I'm afraid. They are most likely getting paid more than they do back home, and if not, perhaps unemployment is too high back home. Al Jon
Thats why we don't employ any. They demand a too high price for their skills.

In some cases yes, however if a certain nationality is more expensive its often because they tend to have a certain skillset. QS's are much more common in the UK than in Australia, so we employ them from the UK. Since it usually takes more $$ to lure someone from the UK, thats the asking price. For other more general engineering work, there are more Aussies for example.
There seem to be fewer American expats because they get double taxed (except Dubai), but they still have to pay tax back home, so there is no tax advantage to working here.

That must be if you work for a local company. I have no idea about that, since I work for a foreign company. If someone offered me double to leave my company, I'd consider it, but I also value the relationship I've developed with my current employer. Not everything is about money. hamadl I totally agree with that, thats if you are happy at work.. gtmash
You are right on every count except the first one. There aren't a "billion" low-skilled workers in India. I've been in every popular education system (except UAE gov school) available here, and I can solidly say Indian high school kids are much smarter at theoretical knowledge than any Brit or American kid at the same level.
While not everyone there gets to go to college in India, the ones that come out are some of the smartest people on the planet. Why do you think so many doctors on TV are portrayed as Indians (barring the shows which actually ARE about good-looking Caucasian doctors)? But you are right in that there is oversupply and many come here to work cheap. Al Jon
I am not suggesting that India is purely made up of low-cost labour, I'm suggesting with exagerated 'billion', that most of the Indians coming here to do low cost jobs (driving, construction etc) have plenty of replacements should they try to push the salary up above its natural rate (somewhat above India's but not by much is my guess). My point still stands.
As to the point you are making, I'm not quite sure what it is. Are you suggesting that the Indian education system is better than that of the West (in which case, why is the netflow of educational migrants from India, rather than to India), or are you suggesting that Indian people are naturally more intelligent?
In terms of your observation of the Indians that 'make it'...my observation is that your average Joe back home that see's an immigrant whether they are from India, China, Vietnam or any other 3rd world country...they are often likely to be above average in determination, intelligence and capable of great things. In short, the kind of people who are likely to make it outside of their country in the first place.
That doesn't make your average Indian / Chinese / Vietnamese more talented than average, it makes your average Indian / Chinese / Vietnamese IMMIGRANT more talented. gtmash
Well, I wasn't talking about bus drivers in the first place. But since you absolutely refuse to believe that 3rd world countries can have better education than the West without trying it all out like I have, there's no point continuing with this argument.
hamadl
I believe that indians are the same as any other nationality. Yes, there are genious indians, but there are ones that dont even pass school, and there are avarage ones (just like any other nationality).
Why do you think so many doctors on TV are portrayed as Indians? maybe most of the doctors are indians, but should we look at numbers or percentages? Medvezhonok
That's a pretty bold claim, which would have a shred of credibility if the top Indian university wasn't ranked 674th in the world.
Here is a list of the top 100 universities as published in the Economist:
http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007_Top100.htm
And here is the top 100 distributed by country:
http://www.webometrics.info/Top_100_by_Country.html
There is no doubt that Indian people can be intelligent - as proven by the rock solid argument that most doctors on TV are Indian - but that in no way infers that the educational system of such 3rd world countries is superior. Al Jon
What Medvezhonok said.
You are the one who made the claim, so why don't you back it up with more than an opinion.
Also, you didn't answer my original question. Since I gather from your response, that you believe the Indian education system is better, why is it that more Indians travel to the US / Australia / UK than Americans / Australians / Brits travel to India for the purpose of education? jabbajabba
You sure about that;
'Copyright © 2007 Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, All Rights Reserved.' Medvezhonok
Yup.

yujinn Is it safe to say then that westerners are preferred because it i assumed that they have better education- and not because of the fact that they're western (and white)? Then how do you explain the occasional western-educated asian who got turned down from the job because the would-be employer did not expect an asian? Al Jon
Whoever said westerners are preferred? Its simply that if a job requires a foreign education or foreign experience, that its most likely to result in a westerner.

That may happen here, but its far less likely to happen in the US or Australia. I'm not saying that discrimation doesn't exist back home, that would be naive. In my experience, my company employs mostly Brits and Australians as foreigners. Those foreigners include Indians, Chinese, Malaysians, Filapinos and Indonesians amoungst them. They received the majority of their education however, from Aus / UK.
I have had almost as many western education asian colleagues than european colleagues.
I have seen the discrimination you are talking about in Taiwan however. Ironically its Asian cultures who are more likely to discriminate against their own. jabbajabba
Can't argue with that :oops: scot1870 Might as well stick my oar in for a laugh. There are clearly intelligent people from 3rd world countries, and often they go to great lengths to show how educated they are and get a bachelors, masters, PhD and anything going to stand out. Good on them. If you go to the UK or US, you're likely to get paid on a par with everyone else if you really are that intelligent. I would disagree degrees obtained in India, China and the like can compete with the West, as simply the best Indian and Chinese professors head West to work alongside other people from all over the world. There are 2 elements I'd like to throw in the mix, these are valid observations I've had from being involved in recruitment here. - People from poor countries often greatly overstate their talents. Yes, you need to sell yourself, but lying creates a really bad impression and makes recruiters think twice the next time they see a similar CV. I've had such people write on their CV they were CEO of a corporation in their home country, when you press them for details they worked the till at their mum's coffee shop and handed out flyers in the street. - Canvassing offices by walking in unannounced or spam faxing the office when you have good qualifications. Again, recruiters think you're lying and desperate. - The most important of these may cause some controversy but it true. A whole lot of people - I'd even go as far as to say the majority - just cannot take a decision or accept responsibility. There are all sorts of cultural drivers I don't understand, but even well educated people will simply agree with the most senior person in the room and not act until they are given a list of things to do. It's mind boggling and infuriating given they'll have told you something else when that person wasn't in the room. Why people often look for Westerners in management positions is because they have the guts to stand up for what they believe in even if it upsets people in the room. That's how businesses should be run! Some westerners are guilty of this to, but not to such an extent. The net impact of this seems to be that companies hire a ring of cheap "yes men" with a few sprinklings of expat managers to really make the decisions that count. So, in short, you can be as educated as you like, if you don't have the balls to implement that knowledge then you'll never get anywhere. My thoughts, discuss. Al Jon Thats certainly a typical cultural trait in Asia, from Japan, Taiwan, China Malaysia etc. Not had enough experience with Indians / Arabs to know if that is common or not. But I agree with your observation. I think accepting responsibility and honesty are more highly regarded in our society, whereas, social harmony is the no.1 factor in Asia. ^ian^ To the moron mod who moved this, don't you think it would have been better under expat help? Especially since there's a dozen threads of this nature there already? yujinn
Does this mean the employers know this? That asians by culture are liars and do not take responsibility and that westerners have the guts to take on anything?
I guess "culture" and stereotyping races' traits is the basis then?
How would an employer know the applicants real traits by just looking at his resume? How would an employer know if the things written in there, for both asians and westerners, are for real?
Too bad they wouldn't know the REAL attitide of people at work until they start working for them. Donnabelle
LOL Donnabelle I think Educational Qualifications and Work Experience plus skills and capabilities to do the job should be more important above anything else. Adding to this of course are the virtues of the person which will help him to build a good relationship with his employer and collegues. SCY Passport should not be the factor to determine one’s salary/package. However, it has been a common observation that mostly Asians accept a package that is not even equal to what the western expats received. There are obvious reasons why mostly asian tend to accept below average salary package. One obvious reason is unemployment from the country of origin. Al Jon, Coming from a country with poor economy, I find it pejorative to use the term “Third (3rd) World Country” when referring to Asian countries as if Asian countries are not part of the world economy. We could be poor in terms of economy but we are not “third world". Al Jon
As I explained earlier, this is an easy one. In asia, the cost of living is much much lower than in the US or Europe. Therefore a European would be far more likely to turn down the same position at that pay rate, than someone from Asia or Eastern Europe, because everybody is trying to save money.
I don't see any non-Europeans doing the same job here as Europeans and not getting a similar package.
As for unemployment back home, sure that is a reason...if they can make enough money somewhere else to survive, then its an obvious choice.
Remember however that many countries in Asia enjoy much lower taxes than in Europe. We pay higher taxes so that during times of unemployment, we take care of those people and provide them with $$. We sacrifice economic growth and Asian countries sacrifice social responsiblity.

Your defensiveness is unwarranted. Firstly '3rd world' doesn't just apply to certain Asian economies, it also to many others of non-Asian origins, furthermore, not all Asian economies are 3rd world.
The term '3rd world' is an economic / politic term used as a classification for the various economic political situations of those countries. The classification of 'poor in terms of economy' is a useless term, as it doesn't distinguish between 1st, 2nd 3rd, 4th and 5th world economies. Al Jon
It certainly sounds bad doesn't it....yes its a sweeping generalisation that of course says nothing about any particular individual other than predisposition to certain cultural traits. Well if I was an employer, I'd have to weigh up many of the factors / traits that an employee has. From my experience and those of friends, in Eastern Europe, Asia, India and Africa you are far more likely to be cheated, lied to and robbed.
Is it culture? Economy? Morality? I don't know, I just know it exists. That automatically creates a negative bias for me in doing business over there.
For example, in Taiwan if you are in the manufacturing industry supplying someone, you should just expect that you will never get paid for the last order, it should have already been taken into account in your calculations.
We may call it corrupt and cheating etc, they call it common sense.
If I could employ a European person to do the same job, for the same price. I would.
If you think thats racist, it makes you stupid, because I'd be far more likely to employ an Australian born Chinese, than a European from Albania for example.
Culture and race are two separate ideas, but they often intertwine.
If you want to know where your country is more likely to be, see this:

Yep. we all stereotype. Its a natural human response. However an employer wouldn't know the real traits of a person by looking at the resume. He/she could however ring the previous employers to find out what their performance was like.
That would be the most reliable way would it not? SCY It is a matter of preference whom employer should hire. I have to admit that I, too am guilty of stereotyping certain nationalities fit for the job. Over time, i've encountered more spoonfeeding style here than anywhere else. You have to spoonfeed managers as well. I have to agree with Scot that job seekers from a certain origin tend to over specify their qualifications, but they know nothing. We have once an applicant who hails from her country of origin and waving her masters degree, but we were surprised to know that she wasn't able to send a file thru email. The reason: She doesn't know how to do it! Before we hire someone, we let them undergo several hands on practical tests. Otherwise, we will end up teaching even the basic things and office protocol. (Newly grad and no working experience can be exempted) Having said all these, companies in UAE still need to invest more bucks on human resources to attract well-skilled and talented people. Job seekers who are highly qualified will never accept a meager salary package. They will just say "thank you" while laughing for the offer. dave101 ive noticed alot of jobs, even basic sales jobs, ask for a diploma or similar level of education. but i also find that having a british degree, even only a reasonable one, seems to far outweigh the equivalent or even better level of qualification if coming from a dodgier country! WaterWater 1. It's a numbers game
It's not a matter of your passport determining your salary. The salary (and other factors) dictate which types of people are willing to apply for, and ultimately accept, the job.
Before applicants even start walking through the door, the job and the salary package exist, determined by the company's philosophy, culture, budget, whatever.
After that it's a numbers game. If I hear of a position similar to mine offering Dhs 10,000 a month I wouldn't even consider applying for it, but there would probably be many Asian applicants. So the position would determine the passport of the eventual employee.
If a similar position were to offer Dhs 30,000 a month, I would consider applying, and so would many Asian and Western-educated people. Then the probablility of the successful candidate being Western would be higher.
If a similar position were advertised at Dhs 60,000 per month, I would definitely apply, and so would people more experienced and better-qualified than me who would consider moving from Europe or the US to take up the position. These are people that I wouldn't be up against for the Dhs 30,000 job and so yes, there is an even greater likelihood that the successful candidate would be Western.
But don't kid yourself that a company first selects the best applicant and then the HR manager thinks, "Hmm, this brilliant candidate is Asian, so let's make it a Dhs 10,000 position". It simply doesn't work like that.
If you don't want to be paid peanuts, whatever the colour of your passport, then don't apply for or accept a job that pays peanuts!
2. All education is not equal
But on another note, when it comes down to comparing education sometimes two degrees with the same name are simply not comparable.
Writing skills, for example, tend to be different between well-educated Asians and Westerners in many cases. I have colleagues with MBAs (almost all of them have MBAs) and PhDs, and I'm completely shocked by their business writing skills sometimes. I'm truly tired of correcting basic grammar in documents by colleagues who are "better-educated" than I am. And I'm talking about basic writing here, which means I seldom get to see truly well-designed, persuasive, cogent and inspiring writing.
Whether or not English is a first language, I don't really care. This is an English and Arabic business environment, and if you really can't write properly in English at the very least then you're at a disadvantage.
It's not about your passport , it's about business. DubaiInformationSite those who do not think this is the case are in a severe state of denial. this will only hurt you in the long run. western experience is perceived to be the best. notice i said perceive. the west has seen dubai's future as it was in its place not long ago. similarly a passport from pakistan is worth much less.....does that answer your question? bonbonboi
I don't agree about western and eastern stuff.
the nationality does not make the man. accountingtutor yes i agree that western country citizens get higher pay compare to asians accountingtutor Basically they all have a American, UK, Australian or equivalent degrees... with first language as English... Education/ traing level is higher (more professional) mehreen Luckily, I possess a Canadian passport. My son wants to move to Dubai and luckily he is an American by birth and he also has a Canadian passport. I guess at the end of the day, it's a nice advantage. Misery Called Life
It's a macro perspective. Asian countries tend to be extremely corrupt. Getting a degree there is a joke so is getting a license. Apart from a handful of brilliant institutions a bulk of the institutions in these countries are rubbish. Those few brilliant students really don't choose to come here.
That's not the case with Western countries where education standards are higher, they are ethical( atleast they have records to verify, unlike Asian countries)
It's unfair that employers stereotype, but there's a reason for it and the truth is harsh!



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