UAE is the Middle East’s top country to live and work in

UAE is the Middle East’s top country to live and work in

Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah top the list of Middle East’s best cities to live and work in.

July 24, 2012 11:33 by kippreport

According to a survey by Bayt.com and YouGov, Abu Dhabi emerged as the best city to live and work across the Middle East, followed by Dubai and Sharjah. Manama and Muscat completed the list of the top 5 cities, based on factors such as wealth, quality of life, labour rights, culture and ease of doing business.

Respondents of the survey rated their own city as the way they view the balance between their job and the rest of their time. Conspicuous by its absence is Doha, despite recent efforts to position itself as one of the best, in the Arab world.

Residents of the UAE, on the other hand, seemed much happier. Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah scored highly across most of the categories in the survey, including law enforcement, public utilities, transport, low traffic congestion, entertainment venues and education, putting the country in an enviable position. However, competition between Dubai and Abu Dhabi looks fierce as latter fell behind Dubai in terms of ‘Quality of Life’.

In terms of employment, Bayt.com revealed while about 4,000 of the 11,000 jobs currently available on the employment site were based in the UAE, respondents said that the possibility of employment was highest in Riyadh. Doha and Jeddah were the second and third best cities for employment prospects, followed by Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Beirut was deemed the city with the lowest employment prospects.

Amongst the most dissatisfied of the lot in terms of quality of life are Beirut and Damascus, followed by Algiers. The poll was conducted online from June 24 until July 4 and covered more than 12 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. The survey involved 9,038 respondents, of which a sample size of 6,013 was used to collate the results.