I had always wondered why I see so many Philipino women here. It seemed strange that labor would need to be imported with so much unemployment here. I got to talk to one today as we were waiting for the travel agent to open. She tells me that the job availability is about the same here as it is there, but they get paid slightly more here! I keep forgetting that there are places that are much worse off than Yemen. People keep coming here by the hundreds from Somalia. The only answers I can come up with as to why Philipinos can get work here are training and they don’t have to wear a veil. It’s sad to think that Yemenis don’t have the skills to work a counter at a bowling alley, a travel agent, or in a hotel, but I am now coming around to believing it.
When I volunteered at a prison in Arlington, one of the things we were supposed to emphasize was basic job skills like dressing up for an interview, showing up on time, not leaving early, etc. It shocked me to think that someone didn’t know these things, but they didn’t. I have talked to several (western) owners of businesses here and they no longer hire Yemenis. The frequent complaints were people not coming in on time (or at all), disappearing for hours, Quat chewing on the job, and a general lack of people skills. I think it’s unfair to label an entire country’s population with undesirable work related skills, but these owners had had enough. I have certainly seen a lack of service skills across many different businesses. These Philipino women apparently bring the employers the skills that they need, like making the customer happy. The other possibility is that some employers prefer to have women that you can look at without veils or hijabs. Maybe they feel that seeing an actual woman could improve sales. It might.
Economists refer to the skill sets of people as “human capital”, and it is, by far, the most valuable and most flexible of all of the types of capital out there. Yemen certainly needs foreign investment here, but without the necessary human capital, not much will be accomplished. Hmmm, maybe that’s a decent business opportunity for me…:-)