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WOW!!! thanks all for the help. First off, my husband has already been sent there for a contract from his canadian job here....so he knows the place. also, one of his co-workers has left canada and taken a job with Emrites Airline...so he has first hand experience too.. now the plan is to go ONLY once he has a job offer and it has to be worth it. as an engineer, he makes decent money over here, so I imagine the pay would be even better over there. I also have heard of the PERKS that are included with the offer....portion of the rent, portion of the shcooling and the travel tickets to come home once or twice a year.

I think, first step is to get an offer and like you suggest, get the contract read over by a lawer. there are some arabic speaking ones here in canada, and we can get all the fine print read here BEFORE accepting. my only concern was is it really worth all that people have told my husband it is..like is there really money to be made in a deal like this!

thanks....you are all helping make my decision a little easier....all except for YOU KNOW WHO !!! Mr negative over there!! but its OK...he is only 18...i think i can excuse the immaturity in his comments. he is just out to have fun in life..not yet serious!!

The PERK aspect is a whole different ball game. In the days of yore the only way companies could attract employees was with the lure of big salaries and perks. It is very competative over here at the moment, many companies have reduced or even removed thier perks that they pay to employees. In most instances they will pay a subsidy, it is then up to the employee on how they want to spend it, which is obviously dictated by thier lifestyle and reason for comming to Dubai. If you want to come and save money you need to be prepared to sacrifice! Emirates are very good with regard to the perks they pay their staff as they are quasi-government.

You will find that once you are here there are litraly hundreds of ways they try to keep the money in the country and reduce the amount of earnings that are repatriated. As there is no tax you pay for every single little service that you would normally take for granted. You apply for a visa, they charge you for the typing, for the translation into arabic, for the processing, for the stamp in the passport etc....

The other big drain is SHOPPING, they make it so damn attractive and tempting to spend your money. During the summer months you litrally cannot spend much time outdoors, so many people simply head off to the malls or find indoor activities to occupy yourself and children - which comes at a cost.

Have a look at the following site : http://www.expatriates.com/classifieds/dub/

Have a look under the property section, this will give you a good indication of rentals you can expect to pay; although if you don't know the areas and locations it may prove a little difficult. There is now also a "private ownership" option in Dubai. According to Federal regulations expatriates may not own property in the UAE, to get around this legality they lease it to you for a period of 99 years. This is also a fairly good investment as the property can be sold when you decied to leave and you at least get to make something off of it. Paying rent

Schooling is also very expensive here and they put the price up on a very regular basis - basically milking it as much as possible!

OK....now you are talking more like i am thinking!!! i was afraid that it was all too good to be true! i told my husband i had a feeling that the perks he was talking about was all in the past to get people interested in going to Dubai to get things started....i was sure that the perks and all were a thing of the past since now EVERYONE wants to go there...they dont really have to wave the carrot infront of us to go there...they have people now fighting for jobs instead of having to give them incentives to go there.....well, i guess we will just have to wait and see what the perks attached to offer are all about. That is really the only way we can make a decision. he thinks that engineers are still offer a %of rent, a % of schooling and a %of every thing else on top of the great taxe free salary.

thanks a lot for your help. i am going to check out that site you linked to me.!!!

ps: if it applies, happy easter!!

Okay, only one or two comments. Like I said, there are still some companies that offer decent perks! So don't be too dis-illusioned. Wait for the offer to come back and then evaluate it.

Engineer.... when I hear the word I want to scream. I would assume that he is a mechanical, electrical, structural, chemical ... etc engineer?

Unfortunately any qualification that you have makes you and "engineer" in the Middle East! My assumption is that there is no proper translation for some qualifications so everything ends up as "Engineer", so you get traffic engineers, irrigation engineers, computer engineers .... etc... etc... etc.... The sad thing about this is that most of these are simply courses or at best 2 year courses..... so the title "Engineer" doesn't carry with it the same weight and authority as it does in the States of Canada for instance.

you can have a look at some of the schools ....

www.jpsdubai.com
www.jinschools.com
www.isbi.com/istd-viewschool/ 4328-Jumeirah_English_Speaking_School.html

Although if you type in Dubai and Schools - Google, you are bound to find a lot more. One comment on schools aside from the fees is to look at the curriculum they offer (American or British) and when the school year starts - in the UAE it starts in September. I know of lots of cases where kids transfering have to either drop a year or pick up a year...

Thanks for the Easter Wishes, hope you and your family had the same. Yes, although the region is predominantly Muslim they are relativley tolerant in Dubai and the are a number of churches. We even have Christmas Trees in December !!!

Check the Canadian Tax laws. I know the Australians have to still pay tax for a period of 3 years after arriving here and I think the Americans still have to pay "County Tax"???? or something like that...

once again,,,thank you for all the advice ! you have been most helpful!! as for the Engineer term....unfortunately its a computer/electrical engineering degree that here takes 4 years of university studies! so hopefully it will count for somthing!!!

Canadian tax laws = you leave canada and become a non-resident, you no longer need to pay tax... but you lose on dumb little things like the joke of a system called "free universal health care". Well boo hoo, la di da... whatever...