Leaving Dubai

Like so many immigrants before him, Kurama Lingham left his wife and daughter and his life as a shepherd in the empovrished southern Indian province of Andrha Pradesh last year with dreams that the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates would be made of gold and that he could get his own small bit of it. "I thought all my troubles would disappear," he says. But even in the best of times when he was working as a construction helper, Lingham's salary was just about $1,300 a year. And when the global financial crisis hit the Persian Gulf, his employer began cutting wages to the extent that he could barely feed himself, let alone send money home to his family. He quit that job four months ago, but has been unable to find another. Now he is homeless, sleeping in a public park in a neighborhood full of Indian migrants in the nearby emirate of Sharjah. He has no money, and nothing but the clothes on his back and the plastic sandals on his feet. Even if he had enough money for a plane ticket home, he owes about $3,600 back in India on a loan he took in order to move to Dubai in the first place. What does he think about Dubai now? "My mind isn't working," he says. "I am too afraid to think."

When oil prices where high and money was flowing into the Persian Gulf region, foreign workers flocked to Dubai and the rest of the Emirates to the extent that only about 18 percent of the population are native-born Emeriratis. The foreigners came from all over South Asia to work as laborers and in the low skilled services; from the poorer Arab countries to work as technicians and Middle Managers; and from Britain and Europe for better-paying white collar jobs than they could have gotten home. They built Dubai's glittering skyscrapers; they cleaned its luxury hotel rooms; and they ran some of the regions most dynamic businesses. And now many of them are leaving.

The government of the UAE and Dubai have not released official numbers of the outflow of foreign workers, and have generally played down the extent of the migration. But a respected local research firm, EFG Hermes, predicts that the population of the UAE will decline 5 percent this year and will drop 15 percent in Dubai. Indeed, even without figures, the population drain is visible almost anywhere one goes in Dubai.

The city's terrible traffic jams have thinned to manageable levels. Taxi drivers talk about loosing half their regular costumers. Used car dealerships have been barraged by departing foreigners trying to sell their vehicles, but dealers have stopped buying because there's no longer a re-sale market . "I've got no space; no one has any money; and no one's buying," said one. And a government-run auction is doing a brisk business selling vehicles that have either been repossessed or abandoned by their debt-ridden owners at the airport as they flee the country. Local media report that up to 50 percent of airline tickets leaving the country are just one way. Neighborhoods popular with migrant workers are thinning out. Stores in Satwa district, a neighborhood that is popular with the Filipinos who work as waiters and maids in the nearby skyscraper alley of Sheikh Zayed Road are filled with homeade real estate flyers anoucing "Bedspace for Bachelors" and "Room for Fillipino Ladies." Elizabeth Alipo, a 46 year-old real estate broker originally from Manila who was posting an ad for the spare room in her home, said she hadn't been able to find a tenant in over a month, and that about half her friends had left the country. "Thank God we still have our jobs," she says, referring to her architect husband. "It's a global crisis, so its better to stay here than return to the Fillipines. But I can't say anything good about Dubai right now."

The population drain has been accelerated by the fact that residency in the UAE is contingent upon employment. For the most part, companies provide workers with their visas, and then cancel the visas of anyone they lay off. At which point, laid-off employees typically have just 30 days to settle their affairs and depart. Companies are responsible for giving their employees plane tickets home, which most do unless they've gone out of business. And because of the sudden nature of the financial crash in Dubai, many of those who had been living the high life on credit thanks to a permissive banking system that looked kindly on Westerners, suddenly found themselves without work, deep in debt, and forced to leave the country on short notice. Local website classified sections are filled with desperate ads offering entire household furnishings -- often practically new -- for a song. "Relocation forces complete sale of furniture of all furniture and household items," said one. "Massive savings as a job lot."

Not everyone is sad to see the foreigners go. The real estate boom since 2003 attracted a surge of Europeans and Russians with little attachment to Arab culture, and little awareness of Muslim morals. They partied hard, wore skimipy outfits, and pushed up prices for everyone else. But the transformation of the Dubai into a multi-national trade and services hub will continue, according to a local newspaper editor. "It's just the riff-raff who have left," he says. "The dream of Dubai will survive without them."

But the exodus from the Emirates could effect stability in the rest of the region. The oil-driven boom in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia served as a a release valve for social and economic pressure in the rest of the Middle East. Driven by war, or failed governments and economies, a booming young generation of Arabs from countries such as Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq, found refuge in the Gulf. Now thanks to the global crisis, these workers returning home are finding economic conditions even more difficult when they left. Mohammad Moustafa, a 28 years old Lebanese communication engineer, lived in Dubai for three years, working on huge luxury construction projects. But when he was laid off earlier this year, he abandoned his car, skipped out on three months back-rent, and returned home to Beirut to find that his former Lebanese employer had become a victim of the global downturn and gone bust. " I am one of thousands," according to Moustafa, who says he has just three options: either he can try his luck somewhere outside Lebanon where the job market is probably also shrinking, join one of the country's sectarian militias, or commit suicide.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Dubai with reporting by Rami Aysha/Beirut