DOHA: A second quarter 2013 labour force sample survey shows that not many unemployed Qataris are willing to take up private jobs.
This is despite the government pushing the private sector to give enough representation to Qataris in employment and even fix a quota for them.
The survey covering 1,332 jobless Qataris suggests that only 562, or 42.25 percent, were keen to take up jobs in the private sector.
Out of the 1,332 surveyed, 966 were women and a vast majority of them (738 or over 76.4 percent) said they didn’t prefer private sector employment.
The Qatari men surveyed totalled 366 and out of them 260 (71 percent) showed no preference for private sector employment.
The sample survey was carried out for the April to June period (second quarter) of 2013 by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics.
A separate survey of 242 jobless Qataris with secondary school qualifications who said they wouldn’t work for the private sector cites different reasons for their reluctance.
Work timings (apparently, work in two shifts a day) were cited as a major barrier by a majority of the 242 Qataris — 132 — for not taking up private employment. Only 44 of them cited low wages as a reason for their dislike of a private job, while another 44 said they didn’t like the idea of working six days a week.
The average monthly pay of those in employment was a little less than QR10,000 (QR9,636) in the period survey (second quarter, 2013).
There were a total of over 1.46 million people in the country in paid employment in that quarter, with the average monthly wage of men being higher (QR10,302) than that of women (QR7,893).
Of the 1.46 million employed, only 173,220 were women, according to the ministry’s survey.
The Peninsula
