The choice of April 1 as the starting date of Qatar Career Fair 2013 sums up my view of the fair, in general, being an event about the thing most hated by God, namely lying.
It is well known that Qatar is a major producer of natural gas and oil relative to its size and population. This gives Qatar financial surpluses that help it play the role of saviour for several countries that suffer natural or economic hardships, either through direct financial assistance or through investments in these countries.
This wealth has also enabled Qatar to modernise its infrastructure and make ambitious development plans. These plans needed labour to be realised, but because local labour was not available in sufficient numbers, Qatar had to get labour from other countries.
The presence of this labour, however, has stifled enthusiasm for hiring Qataris. Opening its eyes to the perils entailed in this, the government created a committee in the 1970s and gave it the responsibility of giving available jobs to Qataris.
But this committee is nipped in the bud whenever it is formed anew. This is done in ways that give the impression that somebody is moving things from behind the curtains in order to derail the committee and prevent it from fulfilling the objectives set out for it by the state.
Together with unrelenting efforts to strangle the committee, retirement, pension and human resources laws were passed. These laws were not applied to foreign workers, but only to Qatari workers. Some government officials – supported by their advisers - have even applied these laws in the wrong manner.
As the Qatarisation project was brought to a halt, some Qatari nationals were sent into retirement while they were still in their prime. Government officials have even obstructed the recruitment of nationals while strongly supporting the recruitment of foreigners.
To counter this, the government launched the Career Fair, to encourage the government, private and joint sectors to compete to hire Qataris. These sectors have raced against each other not to hire Qatari workers, but to please the ruler of Qatar, who has devoted his whole life to serving the people of this country.
The Career Fair, as goes the vision of the ruler of Qatar, aims to provide jobs and training opportunities to Qataris. It aims to offer Qataris the chance to hone their professional skills and receive career guidance, apart from opening the way for integrating Qatari university graduates into the job market in order to put their energies and skills to use in taking forward the development of this country.
In this context, the Heir Apparent, H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, has said that countries that have made big strides towards development have done so by depending on their human capital.
The sorry thing, however, is that the Career Fair has strayed from the course charted for it by the ruler of Qatar. It has turned into an event where officials brag during its inauguration in front of the Emir of Qatar and the media of creating openings for Qatari youth in all sectors. In order to make my point clear, I mention some statistics from the Career Fair of 2011 below:
• Out of a total of 34,402 applications submitted by job seekers during the fair, only 2,123 were accepted by 90 government agencies.
• Out of 8,516 applications for educational opportunities and scholarships, only 434 were accepted.
The noteworthy thing was that official statements about the fair mentioned only “applications”, not “employment”. This raises the question: Have all applicants been given jobs?
I met some higher-ups in my bid to get an answer to this question. They all said they had collected the applications they had received during all career fairs and put these applications in paper boxes. They said the applications were totally safe in the boxes.
When I asked them about the reason for doing this, they said the agency responsible for approving recruitment of workers had not responded to them.
I asked the General Secretariat of the Cabinet why it did not approve demands for workers by government agencies. One official from the Secretariat told me that demands of government agencies in this regard were usually considered within the context of the administrative structure of these agencies and most of these demands were usually approved.
Here, it is important for us to take a look at the unemployment figures in this country.
• In 2007, there were 2,050 unemployed Qataris. Most of these persons had high school or university certificates. I had hoped that the Career Fair would contribute to reducing the number of jobless people here, but I was stunned to discover that the number had increased in the following years.
• In 2011, the number of unemployed locals had reached 3,037. This figure does not include people who had lost hope of find a job and might have given up attempting to find one. It also does not include those forced into retirement.
We need to keep in mind that foreign workers come to this country in their thousands every year and find jobs and training opportunities here.
While these foreign workers should be ready for the job market, 29,000 of them – out of a total of 41,000 – had received training at government and semi-government agencies in 2011.
Although there are so many jobs and so few Qataris, we have proved a failure in giving some of these jobs to unemployed nationals. Government and other agencies have failed to translate the Emir’s and the Heir Apparent’s love for their people into action. As for the poor citizens who are searching for jobs in this country or Qatari workers who were forced into retirement, I quote from the holy Quran: “For indeed, with hardship (will be) ease. Indeed, with hardship (will be) ease.”
(Surat Ash-Shar – verse no. 6).
