I lived in Saudi Arabia for almost 5 years. and yes both qatar and saudi arabia are applying the same sponsorship rules.
In terms of who is taking full advantage of the rule, it is difinately saudi as sponsors look at it as an excellent way of punishing humanity :) well, i personally don't blame them for that as it goes along with the directions and the vision of the country especially that they have a high rate of unemploument among locals
In qatar on the other hand, the unemployment does not exist, and even if it does, it is easy to resolve since we talk about a couple of hundred of people. But if we look at it from a different dimension, Qatar wishes to become a leader among the gulf countries in terms of education, social services and media and is trying to attract foreign investments, and since this vision is driving everything else in the country, the rules and regulations of the sponsorship should go along and align with the whole objective. Hence, i guess the government of qatar has to consider improving the business enviroment by allowing more freedom for employees to select the place to work based on how friendly, competitive and professional that place is. This will drive the companies to invest it their facilities, systems, policies as to attract the best talents in.
On the other hand, i truly beleive there should be some sort of rules to govern this initiative, because, honestly, most companies are not ready yet, and they still have a long way to go.
To answer the initial question, it is some sort of slavery, Yes it is, but if they change it, employers need to start working on emproving themselves immidiately.
So much debate about this topic,
I lived in Saudi Arabia for almost 5 years. and yes both qatar and saudi arabia are applying the same sponsorship rules.
In terms of who is taking full advantage of the rule, it is difinately saudi as sponsors look at it as an excellent way of punishing humanity :) well, i personally don't blame them for that as it goes along with the directions and the vision of the country especially that they have a high rate of unemploument among locals
In qatar on the other hand, the unemployment does not exist, and even if it does, it is easy to resolve since we talk about a couple of hundred of people. But if we look at it from a different dimension, Qatar wishes to become a leader among the gulf countries in terms of education, social services and media and is trying to attract foreign investments, and since this vision is driving everything else in the country, the rules and regulations of the sponsorship should go along and align with the whole objective. Hence, i guess the government of qatar has to consider improving the business enviroment by allowing more freedom for employees to select the place to work based on how friendly, competitive and professional that place is. This will drive the companies to invest it their facilities, systems, policies as to attract the best talents in.
On the other hand, i truly beleive there should be some sort of rules to govern this initiative, because, honestly, most companies are not ready yet, and they still have a long way to go.
To answer the initial question, it is some sort of slavery, Yes it is, but if they change it, employers need to start working on emproving themselves immidiately.