ABSTRACT
Shortages can be put down to five factors. First, development plans in the oil-rich countries are extremely ambitious with respect to manpower requirements. Before 1976, this led to the importation of about 1 million unskilled or manual workers to erect social overhead capital (see Shaw: 1979c). Between 1975 and 1980, it required an additional 900,000 skilled expatriate workers merely to manage and operate the new infrastructure. Large shares of these imports were expected to be 'professional, technical and kindred workers', 'clerical workers', 'operatives' and 'skilled and semi-skilled workers' (see Table 6.1).3 Between 1980 and 1985, the World Bank (l979b) projects that approximately 1 million more expatriates will be added, with an even heavier representation of more highly skilled workers. Not surprisingly, the oil-rich countries are competing fiercely for these workers because
their development programs are similar with respect to skill requirements.
