Persian Gulf Recession Traps Indebted Foreign Workers

For the millions of foreign workers drawn by brighter employment prospects, the crisis can have a far-darker side if they find themselves deep in debt.

Persian Gulf countries like Qatar largely don’t have bankruptcy laws, leaving laid-off workers on the hook for huge outstanding sums while often banned from traveling outside of the country. That leaves many unemployed begging friends and family for help while frantically selling off all their belongings. Others have killed themselves out of desperation, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. 

“It was kind of scary for a while there,” said Robert Foster, an American from Beaufort, South Carolina, who found himself trapped for months in Qatar. “We sold everything we had.”

This recent financial collapse began with oil prices falling from over $100 a barrel in the summer of 2014 to bottom out this January at under $30, a 12-year low. Since then, oil has clawed back to $50 on supply disruptions and lowered reserves, but the damage already had been done in the Middle East.

Among those hard hit was Qatar, a small oil-and-gas-rich country on the Arabian Peninsula where construction accelerated with the announcement it would host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. As oil and gas prices sank, so too did Qatar’s coffers, leading to layoffs across both private and public companies.

The state-run Qatar Petroleum fired at least 1,500 foreign workers in recent restructuring, said Mohammad bin Saleh al-Sada, Qatar’s energy and industry minister.

“We did not start with the idea of laying off people for the sake of laying off people,” he recently told the Associated Press. “Nationals were not affected whatsoever, and that was part of our solid policy.”

Maersk Oil said in October it would cut as much as 12 percent of its staff in Qatar. Vodafone’s Qatar subsidiary announced on May 17 it would cut about 10 percent of its workforce, while mobile phone competitor Ooredoo also made layoffs this year. Al-Jazeera, the peninsula nation’s satellite news broadcaster, also shut down its American channel in April.

Under Qatari law, foreign workers must apply for an exit permit through their employer to leave the country. 

Hamad Medical Corp., Qatar’s main health care provider, and Qatari officials did not respond to requests for comment.

A British coroner investigating the suspected suicide of an engineer from Gloucestershire found hanging in his Doha home in February 2015 ruled this March that “financial worries” may have played a part.

The case remains open as Qatari authorities provided only “limited information,” according to the inquest report obtained by the AP.

Suicides also affect those coming to Persian Gulf countries for work as laborers, taxi drivers and other low-paying jobs. They often pay recruiters back home in Asia or Africa huge sums that take several years to pay off.

India, one of the main countries supplying low-paid workers to the Persian Gulf, saw at least 541 of its citizens kill themselves in the United Arab Emirates in the last three years, according to government statistics offered to Parliament in December.

At least 337 Indians died in suspected suicides in Saudi Arabia during the same period, while other Persian Gulf countries saw annual suicide numbers in the double digits. In Qatar, 21 Indians alone killed themselves in 2015. The deaths continue into this year.