The towers of Qatar’s work-in-progress skyline go up by the week. The roads, by the day. Traffic lights rise up over night, and broken flyovers pay tribute to the lifeless landscape. By the busload, at the break of day and late into the night, blue, green, and yellow-uniformed armies of migrant workers make the journey from labour camp to construction site.
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The Gulf peninsula’s expatriate labour force comes mainly from Central and South-East Asia, with the bulk of construction workers being Indian, Sri Lankan, Filipino and particularly, Nepalese.
High above the ground on often ramshackle scaffolding, or digging waist-deep in sandy trenches, Qatar’s unskilled and semi-skilled migrant workforce take home an average of 600 Qatari riyals (US$160) per month, most of which is sent back to their families in their home country.
Living conditions are cramped, and work consists of a 10-hour day of heavy, physical labour, in sticky, summer temperatures only slightly under 50 degrees centigrade, and blowy, winter mornings close to five degrees, with one or no days off.
But they are the fortunate ones. A recent investigation into Nepalese migrants showed that many prospective workers arrive on the promise of a steady job, only to find themselves dwelling at the airport for days.
Sleeping on the floor, eating hand-outs and drinking water from public facilities, they wait for an employer that will never come because employment contracts set up back home have been bogus.
Stranded, and frequently having borrowed money from the local community to make the journey, they have no choice but to do what they can to find another US$1,000 to return home.
In an emirate where nationals account for barely one fifth of the total population of just over 1.5 million, Qatar’s immense oil and gas wealth, due to the domestic ownership of nearly all its assets, means a recorded income of around US$80,000 per person – over forty times the actual amount earned by those who build the nation.
With Gulf states’ customary fiscal surpluses set to narrow next year as the global economic downturn sinks in and oil prices average $56 per barrel from a high of around $150 per barrel six months ago, the realignment of investments could have a sharp impact on migrant labour, with big business construction contracts risking cancellation.
Migrant labour trends from low-wage south east Asian countries are already showing signs of slowing, meaning a severe dent to heavy remittance-dependent economies in the region and potential migrant workers’ families going unfed.
Qatar, however, propped up by a sovereign wealth fund in excess of $50bn worth of assets, a predominant gas-exporting over oil-exporting industry, and forecasts that show the break-even oil price per barrel that will balance its budget at $38, looks reasonably likely to weather the storm and sustain its inflow of working migrants.
