When companies in the UAE, dominated by a specific South Asian nationality among their employees, seek new visas for individuals of the same nationality, authorities prompt them to ‘achieve demographic diversity while hiring.’ This message appears when an overwhelming number of employees from a particular nationality apply for new visas.
A business service centre in Dubai, reaching out to the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE), learned that establishments must diversify nationalities during hiring. They are instructed to allocate the ‘first 20 per cent of available quotas’ to different nationalities, emphasising that this policy is linked to overall demographic diversity, not a specific nationality.
If a company receives the message to achieve diversity, it isvadvised to try hiring an employee of another nationality.
Furthermore, the MoHRE’s call centre confirmed that the first 20 per cent of a company’s workforce must be diversified. If a visa application is rejected based on diversification, the company must recruit someone of a different nationality for the same role to fulfil diversity requirements. This policy applies uniformly across all nationalities.
One of the employees clarified that he successfully obtained a visa for an Indian applicant at a company with a diverse workforce. However, when attempting the same for an establishment predominantly employing Indians, the ‘achieve diversity’ message was received.
An executive from another business centre highlighted the UAE’s goal of bringing diversity to the workplace. Additionally, he noted that companies with a significant number of employees from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are restricted from applying for new visas for individuals from these countries.
In 2022, MoHRE introduced a three-tier classification system in the UAE. One of the criteria for attaining a higher classification, which includes benefits such as discounts on work permits and transfer fees, is achieving diversity in hiring.
Contrary to social-media claims, visa experts and agents emphatically deny allegations that the UAE has ceased issuing visas to Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.
