Skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers all over the world have been facing a rough time recently as the cost of living worlwide has continued to increase and people are finding it increasingy difficult to make ends meet within their salaries. 

As house prices drop and credit becomes increasingly harder to obtain, small businesses and individuals face hard times with less money to spend and higher costs for fuel, food, house rents and childrens school fees.

Economies with imported workers are seeing a reversal in the trends of many years as people have started to return to their home countries, preferring to earn less and spend less but at least have more security than they have in foreign lands.

Many Pakistani expatriates are planning to return to Pakistan in light of the latest series of recession related problems in the UAE and the rest of the world. Dubai is now following the lead set by western economies by making large scale redundancies, particularly in it’s real estate and financial sectors and developers are laying off staff and delaying their development projects.

Nakheel has made 500 of its staff redundant as it delays work on major projects including the Trump International Tower and Hotel on Palm Jumeirah, Waterfront, Palm Jebel Ali and The Universe, the company said yesterday.

The decision is another sign of the global economic slowdown affecting the property sector. Banks have tightened lending, prices have dropped and sales have slowed, forcing developers to review their expansion plans.

Damac Properties, the emirate’s largest private developer, laid off 200 of its 8,000-strong workforce, while 180 out of 350 staff at Tameer Holding, another Dubai developer, were told they would lose their jobs by the end of this month.

Omniyat Properties also confirmed 69 redundancies from its workforce of 350.

“It’s not unusual for companies to downsize during a recession,” said Peter Walichnowski, the chief executive of Omniyat Properties.

“Companies in Dubai are culling people left, right and centre,” he said. “It’s now a case of people not knowing each day whether they’re going to have a job or not.”

“It will be a lot harder for families, but people can’t afford to be fussy and they will also need to be more flexible and accept pay cuts.”

“It will be a difficult 12 months ahead,” he said.

In Pakistan, many overseas Pakistanis are visiting over Eid ul Azha and as is usual, along with the sightseeing and tourism, they are busy looking for property to buy in the upcoming areas. In the run up to the Eid holidays, there has been a sharp upturn in the overall number of buyers looking for property and also in the number of projects being advertised by developers in the region. 

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