20 August, 2005

Is it our smell?

As seen on the Khaleej Times

URGENTLY REQUIRED
A leading company in the automotive business requires the following personnel to be located in Abu Dhabi and Beda Zayed city branch
DIESEL MECHANICS
ELECTRICIANS
MECHANICS
PAINTERS
DENTERS
LIGHT & HEAVY DRIVERS

Applicants should have a relative Diploma with minimum 3 years experience in Automobiles industry.
UAE D/L is a must for drivers. Indians are not preferred to apply.
Fax: 02-6767708
P.O Box 29699 Abu Dhabi
Posted by 13 at 11:35 am

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is sad. No one should be discouraged from applying for a job. Although I think a possible reason for this might be the law that encourages companies to promote cultural diversity so if the above mentioned firm already has enough indians then they might be forced to discourage applications by indians.

20 August, 2005 13:44
secretdubai said...

That's badly phrased, because on first read (at least if you didn't know this place!) it would imply that Indians were usually preferred, only this time they were interested in everyone applying.

Only knowing this place, it almost certainly means they don't want Indians.

And by "Indians" what do they mean? Do they mean just Indians? People from the Indian subcontinent? South Asians in general?

20 August, 2005 14:09
John B. Chilton said...

I added some thoughts at The Emirates Economist.

Strange Loops has a related post on race here.

20 August, 2005 15:29
BaptizedLucifer said...

uhmm, yeah well they oft run ads which say uk/us nationals may only apply. just depends on which is the shorter list, the ones uropened to, or the ones ur closed to.

as for what do they mean by "indian" it could be the indian subconinent if the company isnt being run by desis. Pakistan and Bangladesh dont exist for most.

20 August, 2005 23:28
marwan said...

Just playing devils advocate - maybe its because when one Indian comes, soon he will be followed by a hundred of his mates from other companies - regardless of whether those companies sold credit cards or bulldozers.

Let's be realistic people - this country is full of Indians and refusing to hire them is being recalcitrant and unyielding. But if I worked at that company, I'd get exactly two kinds of Indian applicants:
1) Chap who doesn't know what the job entails but is 'enthusiastic' and willing to get on the job training - at my expense. He'll do ok, but he'll never come up with new ideas or push the envelope because that might draw attention to himself or heaven forbid, make the company stronger.
2) The experinced old hand who's bounced from company to company over the last decade. Sure, he knows the job inside out and has got brains to spare. Great to hire him. But because he knows the job, he'll never work harder than necessary and if anyone offers him Dh10 more, faster than you can dial Al-Ameen he'll be in the PROs office looking for the transfer forms.

Oops, sorry the long rant.

21 August, 2005 09:41
John B. Chilton said...

secretdubai could be right that the meaning is that the company already has a greater percentage of Indians than the emiratization rules allow. For more, go here. The point is that government imposed racial quotas will also lead to ads like these.

21 August, 2005 10:53
13 said...

I don't think you can encourage cultural diversity and harmony in your company by putting out an advert like this.

Anyway you cannot change the mindset of people, I have already talked about this company to the Indian misson here and the Ministry of Labour Affairs in New Delhi to have this company black listed. If they ever plan to do any business in India, they are going to have a tough time.

I do understand there is a certain amount of anger towards Indians but I don't think it is personal. Migrant labour everywhere faces these kind of trouble because they are prepaid to work longer hours for cheaper and save up all the money for family back home. So they bring down the labour wages and does not spend much in the local market.

Marwan, I appreciate you playing the 'devils' advocate. However if I were the devil, I would have fired you ;-) How can you classify people from a nation of one billion into just two categories? I think the sample size you are refering two is way too small to make such a sweeping statement.

There are 1.5 million Indians in the GCC countries alone.

21 August, 2005 11:05
marwan said...

I was trying to illustrate the mindset of the person who would have written such an obviously offensive advertisement. Because you'd find that the person who wrote would give scores of examples as 'truth' of how he didn't want any more Indians in his company. As you've noted, mindset is difficult to break and there is resentment towards Indians for seeming to hold every job in the Gulf. Indeed, it is for precisely that reason - their omnipresence - that they make such an easy target. What is interesting here, is that in other countries it is the poor and uneducated that are racist - but here it is the rich that can afford to be disdainful.

And it should be noted that I have worked in the Gulf almost exclusively with Indians, and they have mostly been absolutely professional and excellent coworkers. There were exceptions and sometimes they fell into the categories I arbitrarily materialised, but I'd like to emphasise that I don't consider those cases as INDIANS. They are people, first and foremost and their successes and failures are not determined by their skin colour.

We would all do well to remember that.

21 August, 2005 12:15
13 said...

Wish there were more people like you in Dubai Marwan ;-)

21 August, 2005 12:56
Anonymous said...

Marwan.. There are two more categories of Indians.

1. Very competent , highly educated Indian who work in US on Research Projects and help Global organisations registering new patents.

2. Competent Indians get paid 30% more than the salary in Gulf in India itself and keeps refusing job offers from Gulf and other countries

FYI : The salaries in corporate India is at par with Gulf standards.

22 August, 2005 10:12
13 said...

FYI : The salaries in corporate India is at par with Gulf standards.

True, but not if you take into account the 30% income tax slab.
'Corporate India' is still a minority. If salaries for programmers, nurses, engineers etc were on par, you would not see foriegn investors setting up base in India and qualified professionals moving to US, Europe, Middle East, Australia and Singapore.

22 August, 2005 13:03
BaptizedLucifer said...

affirmitive action against a majority? heh.

22 August, 2005 18:45
13 said...

Bingo!

23 August, 2005 12:34
13 said...

1desi,
Go easy on the Red Bull (or Blue Horse) man! ;-)
There are several companies that are black listed by the ministry and these are on their website.

If you are on the list, you can't even buy an air ticket in India.

23 August, 2005 17:45
Anonymous said...

@ Good Looking

"qualified professionals moving to US, Europe, Middle East, Australia and Singapore"

I beg to differ.. Qualified and succeesful professionals from India rarely move to Middle East. Avg..slogged with no success types are the one's who move here in bulk.

One small example of a discussion between me and Head-HR of a leading IT Comany who was looking at hiring a CEO and was proudly quoting "hey the sal is "AED 50K a month" and the variety he was talking about are definitely getting more than AED 100K in India already!!!

Now Corporate india have other fringe benefits..like ESOP , Traing & Devt...

Eg: I get the same monies that i used to got in India.. I just got carried away by the look n feel!!!

PS : Am liking this place. Rule is good. Law n Order is great. But The absense of corporate environment is one thing that i miss!!

23 August, 2005 18:33
Anonymous said...

You may want to know how I found a gulf job. Posted my resume and applied for jobs on http://www.jobs123.com.

I don't think you should pay recruiters. If you have the right skills "ETC" for a job they will find your resume and contact you.

22 April, 2007 14:17
Surajit Bhowmik said...

middle east is made by indians.. and today i read some company looking for employees and wrote that INDIAND ARE NOT PREFFERED... HA HA HA HA .. STAY WITH YOUR OWN

12 July, 2008 22:08

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