28 October, 2005

Headline: Europeans in city earn three times more than Emarati

Dear Khaleej Times:

What am I missing in your provocatively-titled article?

Is the key word "earned"? Or is the key word "families" missing?

Are you calculating your averages over the number in the group (European, Emarati) of all ages, whether in or out of the workforce? Or is it per worker?

I am your faithful reader,

4 comments:

B.D. said...

Shame on the Khaleej

The headline is definitely both misleading and provactive. This clearly becomes evident when one reads the rest of the artice. Basically what the study does is take the salary of a European, who may be here alone, with just a spouse or with a family of no more than one or two kids. Then it divides that salary by the small number of people in that family group, to come up with the average European's salary. Then they take an Emirati worker, with say a much higher salaray, but then this gets divided among the population of the whole household--which might include 1 or more wives and any number of children. (Clearly a much larger household, by three or four times.) Then sadly, we see how low the Emiriti's salary is! Whatever use such a survey has, it is certainly inflamatory and false to suggest that there is some great disparity in the salaries of Europeans and locals. It's a ludicrous comparison to make. Thank you, our "number one favourite" Khaleej Times.

Switch to the Gulf News!

Keef said...

Sounds like a completely pointless study to me. I wonder where the figures come from? I am cetainly not saving 39% of my earnings. I don't know anyone who is! Most of what I earn is spent right here in Dubai, apart from money spent while on holiday.

This underscores the need to find out the amount of the total money transfers by non-nationals and subsequently to investigate the benefit that the country gains from expatriate workers as against the direct and indirect cost of this portion of the labour force.


This beggars belief. How do they think they can complete all the current developments without expat labour? (At all levels). And who's going to buy all this shiny new property?

Anonymous said...

All due respect to all Europeans out there, and let me say outright that I am not taking sides with Khaleej Times here, but it seems that this report has hit a nerve!

Its a study by Dubai Municipality forgodsake! Thats what it says. that a European earns thrice the salary of a local.

and that a european family earns more than a local family.

and BD, your interpretation that this is what they are supposedly doing is dividing the salary of a local on the entire population and bob the builder is entirely off the mark as well.

Its well known fact that Europeans are making a killing in this country, tax-free i might add.

BarfUser said...

In Gulf News one telling detail comes from the fact that the data set they're using is more than seven years old! It's hard to know what, if anything, this says about anything, except as a piece of historical information.

Besides, there's nothing there that we didn't already know: Emiratis and Europeans make the most; Others make less. Duh.

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