Half of UAE private sector workers are Indian

DUBAI: Indian workers in the United Arab Emirates represent some 50 percent of the labour force employed in the federation's private sector, local media said on Friday quoting official data.

In the first half of 2006, Indian nationals amounted to some 45 percent of foreign workers arriving in oil-rich UAE, increasing their number in the private sector to between 1.2 million and 1.3 million workers or 50 percent of the total, reports said quoting a Labour Ministry official.

Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals represented 18 percent and six percent respectively, putting the share of the three south Asian countries at 74 percent of the total labour force in the sector, it added.

Arab workers meanwhile made up between 15-16 percent of the force, which included some 202 nationalities, the report added.

Nationals are mostly employed by the public sector in the seven emirates which form the federation, including the booming city of Dubai.

The report said that around one million workers, representing 40 percent of the labour force in the private sector, were employed in construction. Official data put foreigners at 80 percent of the UAE's population of 4.1 million by the end of 2005.