How labour export has offset unemployment

Oliver Hannah Kizza worked in Dubai as a salesperson for a year before returning to Uganda.
“After graduating in 2011, I landed my first job as an accountant. I earned Shs300,000 per month for more than two and half years. But the deal was not sustainable. I then contacted a friend in Dubai who got me a job as a salesperson,” Kizza said at Two Niles Relations Agency Limited, a recruitment agency.

In Dubai, the 29-year-old earned 1,500 Dirhams (about Shs1.6 million) per month. With the money, she says she attended to family emergencies and bought a piece of land. She returned to take care of her ailing guardian but has since run out of finances due to lack of a job.

Like Kizza, Andrew Obbo, 32, describes his five-year contract in Dubai as fulfilling after he acquired money he used to start up his export business.
“When I got the opportunity to travel to Qatar in 2012, I took it with open arms,” Obbo said.
“My first contract was to work as a security guard. But after six months, due to my experience, I was elevated to human resource department where I doubled as an accountant and the in charge of recruitment and training.”
Obbo and Kizza are just but the few Ugandans who want to return to the Middle East for employment after failing to find jobs in the country upon return.

According to Andrew Tumwine Kameraho, the chairman of Uganda Association for External Recruitment Agencies (UAERA) the Middle East countries are growing economies and have opportunities for Ugandans to get employment.
“This is largely because the population in those countries is relatively small and most of the workers come from developing world, including Africa and Asia,” he says.

“This is the only location where the job market is growing because the economies are growing,” says Kameraho ahead of International Labour Day on Sunday.
UAERA was established in 2005 to help unemployed youngsters to acquire employment.
There are about 30 companies under the association and that sends close to 1,000 workers a year to the Middle East to work as caterers, receptionists, customer care personnel, security guards, technicians, factory workers and cleaners among others.
According to Kameraho, the recruitment agents established the association to organise themselves and ensure that legal procedures are followed and streamlined through advocacy.
“The association was started as an advocacy group but also to self-regulate our activities to ensure that members follow the well laid down regulations and protect the interests of the job seekers so that their rights are protected,” he says.
It has a code of practice which regulates their activities and in conformity with the labour laws and guidelines from the ministry of Gender, Labour, Social Development.

Remittances
He says the country earns $35 million per month ($420 million per year) out of the remittances of workers from the Middle East. This accounts for about 40 per cent of the remittances worldwide.

“Migrant labour is helping the country because the number of people who have secured jobs abroad is growing and their remittances have led to foreign exchange earnings. But the standard of youth has changed to the better because they invest upon return,” Abdul Razak Hussein, the managing director of Two Niles Relations Agency.

“Before leaving the country, job seekers need to find and confirm that they are dealing with registered and licensed companies to affirm that they are moving in the right channel,” he advises.

Lilian Keene Mugerwa, the UAERA legal secretary, says migration for job prospects is increasingly recognised as a strategy for reducing the challenge of unemployment in many countries.

“The improvement of skills and the accumulation of financial capital from working abroad or by activities of migrant workers have positive effects on the labour market like increased employability and the capacity to start a business back home. However, these effects may be hampered when there are no effective mechanisms for access to jobs abroad,” Mugerwa, also the managing director of International Employment Linkages says.

Allegations of abuse
Kameraho argues that it is important to differentiate formal labour externalisation from human trafficking.
“People who are alleged to be under miserable conditions were trafficked by unscrupulous people from Uganda or unlicensed companies,” he says.
He is seconded by Razak.
“There are so many people who obtain private contracts with the employers abroad and we cannot stop this but our advice is that for one to be safe, they must follow the legal procedures and go through licensed companies that are cleared by government,” says Razak adding that the move would reduce cases of human trafficking.
But without a proper migration management system in place, legal migrant workers may find themselves as vulnerable to abuse and exploitation by recruitment agencies and employers as workers who have migrated without employment contracts, Mugerwa says.
“It is the illicit traders who connive with some officials at the airport and offer safe passage these people,” she adds.

What they say about labour export

Andrew Obbo
If you get a job abroad through proper channels, you are given a licence to work and operate. Those who have had bad experience are those who go through back doors and contravened the rules of employment. But also there are people who want to get rich quickly and end up in getting engaged in unscrupulous deals. I never starved at any time and I came back a well off man because those countries are developed. You only have to be disciplined and follow the law.

Abdul Razak Hussein
To be a member of the association is to the benefit of the company in terms of sharing job opportunities, but also to train and orient candidates as well as having a uniform voice in case a problem arises.

Lilian Keene Mugerwa
The association sets principles and standards for recruitment agencies. This means recruitment agencies must obtain full information pertaining the job, in as much detail as possible, they intend to send workers to. This includes specific functions and responsibilities, wages, salaries, and other benefits, working conditions, travel and accommodation arrangements.
All private agents should not knowingly recruit workers for jobs involving undue hazards or risks or where they may be subjected to abuse or discriminatory treatment of any kind.

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