Why the UAE is the world’s 6th-best expat destination to live and work

When Nina Rezec first visited Dubai in 2005 as a “semester abroad student” at Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management, the German native says she was inspired by the city’s multicultural melting pot and opportunity to learn about other cultures.

However, there was also an element of surprise when she realised exactly how safe the city was for a single woman travelling alone.

After travelling back and forth between the two countries to take up a number of internships for two years, Ms Rezec jumped at the chance in 2007 to move to the UAE permanently after accepting a job offer by global consultancy Ernst & Young.

“I fell in love with the city [of Dubai]. It was very different back then … I was very inspired,” the former finance executive, who has just submitted her doctorate on corporate gender diversity and financial stability, tells The National.

“After 17 years of being here, it is home. It’s very safe, especially as a woman — I would not have stuck around for such a long time if it would not have been as safe as it is.”

It is this reputation as a safe and modern city that has contributed to the UAE’s ranking as the sixth-best country out of 52 destinations for expatriates to live and work, up from 18th place in 2021, according to a new survey published on Tuesday by global network InterNations.

The ease of applying for the UAE’s new visa programmes, as well as a range of other reforms that have been introduced since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, also played a part in the country’s high ranking in 2022, the InterNations survey found.

InterNations polled nearly 12,000 expatriates representing 177 nationalities in 181 countries on various aspects of their lives as foreign workers.

In recent years, the UAE, the Arab world’s second-largest economy, has undertaken several economic, legal and social reforms to strengthen its business environment, boost foreign direct investment, attract skilled workers and provide incentives to companies to set up or expand their operations.

In 2019, amendments were introduced to the Golden Residence Scheme to simplify the eligibility criteria and expand the categories of beneficiaries.

The 10-year visa is granted to investors, entrepreneurs, skilled professionals who earn a monthly salary of more than Dh30,000 ($8,167), exceptional talents, scientists and professionals, outstanding students and graduates, property investors, humanitarian pioneers and front-line heroes.

A Green Visa provides a five-year residency for skilled employees, without a sponsor or employer. The minimum educational level must be a bachelor’s degree or equivalent and the salary should not be less than Dh15,000.

Meanwhile, the UAE introduced a one-year digital nomad visa in March 2021 that allows people to live in the Emirates while continuing to work for employers in their home countries, while Dubai also offers a five-year retirement visa for expatriates older than 55.

“The government system is the best,” one Indian expatriate said in the comment section of the InterNations survey.

Conducted in February this year, the survey covered five categories: Quality of Life, Ease of Settling In, Working Abroad, Personal Finance and an Expat Essentials Index, which covers digital life, administration topics, housing and language.

Overall, the UAE ranked second in the world in the Expat Essentials Index, and fifth for both the Quality of Life and Working Abroad categories, which cover the likes of career prospects, salary and job security, leisure options, health and well-being, and safety and security.

It placed 13th in the Ease of Settling In category, while expatriates admitted to “struggling a bit” in the Personal Finance section, with the UAE coming in at 34th place. Overall, however, 71 per cent of foreign workers are happy with their life in the UAE, the survey says.

“Once they arrive [in the UAE], over three in five expats have no problem dealing with the local bureaucracy/authorities, 21 percentage points more than the global average [of 40 per cent],” it adds.

“It might help that administrative/government services are widely available online and that it is easy to live in the UAE without speaking the local language.”

Meanwhile, the safety and security, and health and well-being subcategories also ranked highly for foreign workers in the UAE, coming in at seventh and ninth place, respectively, the survey found.

About 94 per cent of UAE respondents said they were happy with the level of personal safety in the Emirates compared with 81 per cent globally, while 86 per cent said they are also very satisfied with the country’s political stability.

“There are actually quite a lot of factors that rank very well by expats in the UAE,” says Kathrin Chudoba, chief marketing officer at InterNations.

There are actually quite a lot of factors that rank very well by expats in the UAE

Kathrin Chudoba,
chief marketing officer at InterNations

“One of them is safety … how safe people feel personally and walking down the streets. It has been mentioned quite frequently, how nice it is that people feel very safe and [it is] a stable political environment.”

Seventy-eight per cent of UAE respondents to the poll said it was easy to gain access to a wide range of healthcare services, while both the quality of medical care and availability of health care was rated “very highly”, in sixth place overall, the survey says.

The UAE ranked “quite well” when it comes to the Ease of Settling In category, with 77 per cent of those polled saying they feel welcome in the Emirates, compared with 66 per cent globally.

About 65 per cent also said they are happy with their social life compared with 56 per cent globally, while 69 per cent describe the local population as friendly and 74 per cent consider them particularly friendly towards foreign residents.

Meanwhile, the UAE ranked third globally in the career prospects subcategory, with 79 per cent of foreign workers saying that moving to the Emirates has improved their career prospects. This compares with 60 per cent globally, the survey found,

Sixty-eight per cent of foreign workers are also happy with their personal career opportunities, while 55 per cent are satisfied with the local job market.

“They feel that the local business culture encourages creativity [and] thinking outside the box and promotes independent work and/or flat hierarchies,” the survey says.

“The country encourages ambition, innovation and pursuing opportunities,” one expatriate from Australia said in the comment section of the survey about working in the UAE.

Overall, Mexico topped the global ranking for the best destination for foreign workers to live and work, followed by Indonesia in second place and Taiwan in third.

Portugal and Spain round out the top five, followed by Vietnam in seventh place, then Thailand, Australia and Singapore.

“The top five destinations stand out with regard to ease of settling in and personal finance. They also tend to perform well in the Expat Essentials Index,” it says.

However, the worst destinations for foreign workers include Kuwait, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Japan, South Africa, Turkey, Italy and Malta.

“All bottom five destinations have an average to poor performance in the Working Abroad and Personal Finance indices,” it adds.

Meanwhile, Ms Rezec, who now owns a Dubai-based business consultancy, will continue to encourage more people to move to the UAE based on her positive experiences.

“Whoever is asking me to come to Dubai, even if it's only for an exchange programme, I always support that,” she says.

“I'm like: ‘Listen, you will be learning here so much compared to staying in Europe’. Yes, we have a multicultural background as well in Europe and our society but not to that extent [in the UAE] in my opinion.”

Top 10 destinations for expatriates to live and work

Mexico
Indonesia
Taiwan
Portugal
Spain
UAE
Vietnam
Thailand
Australia
Singapore

In-demand jobs and monthly salaries

Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000

Libya's Gold

UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.

The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.

Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.

The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

Milestones on the road to union

1970

October 26: Bahrain withdraws from a proposal to create a federation of nine with the seven Trucial States and Qatar.

December: Ahmed Al Suwaidi visits New York to discuss potential UN membership.

1971

March 1: Alex Douglas Hume, Conservative foreign secretary confirms that Britain will leave the Gulf and “strongly supports” the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates.

July 12: Historic meeting at which Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid make a binding agreement to create what will become the UAE.

July 18: It is announced that the UAE will be formed from six emirates, with a proposed constitution signed. RAK is not yet part of the agreement.

August 6: The fifth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed becoming Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with official celebrations deferred until later in the year.

August 15: Bahrain becomes independent.

September 3: Qatar becomes independent.

November 23-25: Meeting with Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid and senior British officials to fix December 2 as date of creation of the UAE.

November 29: At 5.30pm Iranian forces seize the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by force.

November 30: Despite a power sharing agreement, Tehran takes full control of Abu Musa.

November 31: UK officials visit all six participating Emirates to formally end the Trucial States treaties

December 2: 11am, Dubai. New Supreme Council formally elects Sheikh Zayed as President. Treaty of Friendship signed with the UK. 11.30am. Flag raising ceremony at Union House and Al Manhal Palace in Abu Dhabi witnessed by Sheikh Khalifa, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

December 6: Arab League formally admits the UAE. The first British Ambassador presents his credentials to Sheikh Zayed.

December 9: UAE joins the United Nations.

Qosty Byogaani

Starring: Hani Razmzi, Maya Nasir and Hassan Hosny

Four stars

The Written World: How Literature Shaped History
Martin Puchner
Granta

What is the FNC?

The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.

Rebel%20Moon%20%E2%80%93%20Part%20Two%3A%20The%20Scargiver%20review%20

%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Zack%20Snyder%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Sofia%20Boutella%2C%20Charlie%20Hunnam%2C%20Ed%20Skrein%2C%20Sir%20Anthony%20Hopkins%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202%2F5%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A

Dates for the diary

To mark Bodytree’s 10th anniversary, the coming season will be filled with celebratory activities:

September 21 Anyone interested in becoming a certified yoga instructor can sign up for a 250-hour course in Yoga Teacher Training with Jacquelene Sadek. It begins on September 21 and will take place over the course of six weekends.
October 18 to 21 International yoga instructor, Yogi Nora, will be visiting Bodytree and offering classes.
October 26 to November 4 International pilates instructor Courtney Miller will be on hand at the studio, offering classes.
November 9 Bodytree is hosting a party to celebrate turning 10, and everyone is invited. Expect a day full of free classes on the grounds of the studio.
December 11 Yogeswari, an advanced certified Jivamukti teacher, will be visiting the studio.
February 2, 2018 Bodytree will host its 4th annual yoga market.

Why the UAE is the world’s 6th-best expat destination to live and work

The Emirates jumped 12 places in this year’s global InterNations survey, driven by the country’s new visa programmes and safe reputation

Top 10 destinations for expatriates to live and work

In-demand&nbsp;jobs&nbsp;and&nbsp;monthly&nbsp;salaries

Libya's&nbsp;Gold