Some people criticize countries who pay guest workers low wages for hard jobs such as $10 per day for construction work. Fact is, many of those people would be earning zero to one or two dollars a day if not for that job. Surely, $10 per day is low, but when it is a tenfold increase from other options and including low end but safe accommodations and food, it is a life-saving improvement for millions of people. In some cases the workers can be lifted from poverty, increasing that low wage with experience and earning enough to send home to ensure nutrition and education for their families. Who is more moral on this particular issue, the UAE, for example, who has millions of workers who work for very low wages, but who are thereby saved from starvation and possibly death in their own country, or the US which will not let the very poor enter or work in the US at all, content to leave them in their home countries in even more poverty? This is a big picture global view which is related to birth immigration policy and the minimum wage issue and the right of employers to be free to pay what they wish and employees to work for what they wish. The world can be a very harsh place for some. It is a sad reality but if someone is from Bangladesh and does not know how to read, then his options are limited, his labor is just not going to be worth $15 per hour even in the highest paying cities. In the US, entry level jobs are highly competitive. An employer is simply not going to hire someone at $8 an hour when 55 applicants for that same job have better skill levels, What this does is discriminates against those employees whos skill levels are not yet worth minimum wage. Sound elitist? Its a reality. Some workers are simply not worth those wages yet. The only way they can get to this level is with experience. Back to big-picture global: By having free and open immigration and wages, Dubai did what the US did way back when we were a leading growth economy and job producer: it helped others from poor countries and it helped itself by having low wage workers fill gaps, build infrastructure and work as staff for citizens, thereby freeing them up to in turn do higher end work and earn more.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 16:38:52 +0000
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