According to Government statistics as many as 109,804 expatriates have left Qatar for annual leave or for different reasons between 13th Dec2016 till15th Fe2017 from the time new entry, exit and residency law came in force.
Total of 184,338 exit permits were issued in this period, around 74,049 expatriates left Qatar permanently after informing their employer in this time frame.
The Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs reported that Law No. 21 of 2015 Qatar is quite successful in putting the rules in force. HE Dr Issa bin Saad al Jafali al Nuaimi, the Minister of Administrative Development and Social Affairs said that the figures released for exit permits in the first two months shows that the law is successfully implemented. More than 184,000 expatriates took advantage of this law, which demonstrates the Ministry delivered what it had promised. He added that we are committed to work towards labour reforms and will keep on developing new policies that results in positive outcome for expats.
Within first two months of implementing the law the Exit Permit Grievance Committee received 761 applications to settle exit disputes. In 485 cases, exit permits were given within 72 hours, while 63 are still under consideration and for rest 213 cases sms was sent to workers citing the reasons behind the rejection of their application.
Around 5,196 workers changed jobs after the expiration of their employment contract or after working for five years of their open-ended contact, that shows a good increase compared to 2,288 job changes in 2016 before the law was enforced.
Minister further talked about the steps they are taking to prevent and stop the exploitation of workers in countries that exports labour. He said that the welfare programmes organised by the Ministry focuses on safeguarding the rights and liberty of workers and works towards improving living and working conditions of the labourers.
According to this new law expats dont need any approval from their current employer to change jobs provided they have completed the fixed term contract. Workers in open-ended contact can also switch jobs without the permission from their existing employer provided they have completed a five year service period.
