Qatar less appealing to export labourers

Before 2008, Qatar was one of Vietnam’s key markets for labour export. Around 40 local businesses provided several thousand Vietnamese labourers to work in this market every year.

However, things were changed from mid 2008 and only several hundred local labourers came to work in this market in some recent years.

“Export labourers face tough weather conditions when working in Qatar. The temperature here is often above 40 degrees Celsius. Qatar is an Islamic country, so its culture and food is largely different compared to Vietnam and there are few entertainment forms,” said deputy head of Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs’ (MoLISA) Overseas Labour Management Department Dao Cong Hai.

“Besides, many export labourers incur high pressures stemmed from their dear costs for going abroad to work,” Hai said.

Qatar was also reported as one of the markets facing the highest number of violations from Vietnamese export labourers. During the period 2007-2009 Qatar’s side had ceased granting visas to Vietnamese export labourers three times due to such violations.

In the recent first meeting of the Vietnam-Qatar Joint Committee in Doha, Vietnam’s MoLISA and Qatar’s Labour Ministry agreed to riveting bilateral cooperation in labour between the two countries.

“Qatar is in fact a huge and potential market for labour export. Export to this market would rebound once local labor export firms followed close regulations on labour recruitment,” said MoLISA’s Deputy Minister Nguyen Thanh Hoa.

It proves hard for Qatar and several other countries in the Middle East to attract export labourers now because of low wages and tough working conditions, according to a source from Hanoi-based Labour Export and Commercial Tourism JSC (Colecto). 

“Only several hundred local labourers left for Qatar to work in the year to date, so that resuming labour export to this market proves challenging,” Hai noted.