| Kippreport.com

Dh20K for Fresh Emirati Graduates

March 24, 2011 4:44 by kippreport

Kipp hated being a fresh graduate. For one thing, after climbing the social and academic ladder from a young freshman all the way to being a senior, we found ourselves to be at the bottom of the pecking order, yet again.

Besides no longer being able to idle our time away playing Sudoko, staring at the clouds and going to the occasional college party, we found ourselves in the not so rosy position of being a job-seeker.

Rifle through the classifieds for hours on end though we may, the number of companies looking out for fresh graduates were slim to none. And in the occasion we did find that random IT support agency seeking a fresh graduate to man their call center at 2 in the morning, the compensation was too little to even mentioned in respectable households (yes, Kipp is reading Dostoyevsky at the moment).

Getting a job in Dubai is a tough tough endeavor; even with years and years of experience and an excellent network of contacts to boast of, ever since the recession struck, jobs are harder and harder to secure. And if you are a fresh graduate with nothing to push your case, except maybe an innocent impish imploring pleading grin, you might as well start looking at alternate plans post graduation other than employment.

Unless, of course you are an Emirati fresh graduate.

According to Gulf News, during the Careers UAE fair in Dubai fresh graduates where invited by “an Abu Dhabi bank offering Dh22,500 a month. Responsibilities involved gaining “first-hand experience on how the banking industry operates”. The opening at the unnamed bank included fully-paid expenses for obtaining a master’s degree. The bank was offering 40 such positions to Emiratis only.”

No, Kipp is not going to engage in any “Emiratis are born retired”-A.A.Gill style generalisations or hate, but we are going to say that such a report makes Kipp a very very jealous website (well, as jealous as androgynous websites can get).

Providing incentives for fresh graduates to dive into the stimulating world that is the banking industry, no doubt is an excellent initiative—but Dh20,000? Are you kidding Kipp? If that is an incentive, then what does a reward look like?

Dh20,000 for “first-hand experience on how the banking industry operates”? Come on, unnamed Abu Dhabi bank! Is Kipp the only one who can see just how detrimental starting fresh graduates as high as that really is?

Tags: emirati salaries, emirati starting salary, Emiratis, emiratization