2020: UAE will need to double jobs for nationals

Gulf News:

Currently, the Emirati workforce is about 250,000 workers but more than 38 per cent of the UAE national population is below the age of 15, according to data.

Some 15,000 Emiratis are graduating every year, according to The National Human and Resource Development and Employment authority (Tanmia) statistics.

"Our economy needs to create more job opportunities in the next eleven years than it created collectively in the last four decades," said Gobash.

Another challenge which Gobash highlighted is the concentration of the national workforce in the public sector and the concentration of new opportunities in non-productive sectors.
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Saqr Gobash said at the inauguration of the third annual Human Assets Expansion Congress Mid-East, that a main challenge is to create job opportunities for UAE nationals especially for those below 30.

For data on the age distribution of the native population see UAE in Numbers 2007. Fortunately, birthrates are falling.

For some additional context follow this link:

Marcus Noland and Howard Pack argue in their book The Arab Economies in a Changing World that the principal challenge facing the Middle East, defined as stretching from Morocco to Iraq, over the next decade or two is job creation. The demographics of the region are such that labor force growth is on the order of 3.5 percent a year. This growth does not include increases in female labor force participation, which in fact has also been rising. Given plausible assumptions about productivity and deepening investment capital, the authors calculate that the region as a whole will have to grow at a steady rate of 5.5–6.0 percent a year over the next decade or so to create the jobs necessary to absorb this significant labor increase.

The link takes you to a slide presentation and audio lecture.

For earlier posts at The Emirates Economist click the Emiratization label below.