The nationalization of the private sector is at the center of the Gulf Cooperation Council governments’ employment policies. Executive asked Zafiris Tzannatos, advisor for the Arab states at the International Labour Organization (ILO), to discuss this endeavor. E Is the private sector in the GCC creating enough jobs? Employment in the private sector in the GCC countries has been expanding much faster than the increase in the national labor force for many decades. In the mid 1970s there were 50 percent more national workers than migrant workers (1.7 million versus 1.1 million). Now there are no more than 6 million national workers compared to nearly 14 million migrant workers. This means that the number of migrant workers – mostly in the private sector – increased by 14 times in the last 35 years. E Is the problem in the GCC one specifically of youth unemployment? The problem in the GCC is not
