Foreign workers at end of road in UAE

Foreign workers at end
of road in UAE
Agence France-Presse . Dubai

Certain foreigners living and working in the United Arab Emirates will no longer be able to obtain driving licences if they are doing jobs considered to be menial, the Gulf News reported on Sunday.
Nurses, cooks, housemaids, gardeners and tailors top a list of 100 occupations in which workers without a university education will no longer be granted licences, the English-language daily said.
It quoted a police official as saying the authorities were invoking an existing law, rarely applied in the past, to curb the number of cars on the roads. Licensing officials and driving schools were told last week to start checking applicants’ residency permits to determine if they are eligible to drive, he added.
‘The move is meant to reduce the huge number of vehicles by limiting the number of professionals allowed to obtain driving licences,’ the official said.
The first phase of a modern metro system in the emirate will not be completed until September 2009. Foreigners comprise more than 84 per cent of the UAE’s population of 4.7 million, with hundreds of thousands in low-paid jobs. The living and working conditions of migrant workers have often been criticised by rights groups.