According to Deutsche Welle, the December 2022 advertisement was actually placed by a large Dubai-based company, the Kamal Osman Jamjoom Group, which was only trying to comply with new UAE rules about employing a certain percentage of Emiratis. The Subway job scandal is just one example of how new labor force plans in the Gulf states are causing friction, a researcher told DW.
Experts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace have pointed out that these kinds of economic policies "are beginning to undermine pre-existing social contracts" in the Gulf states. Historically, the state, funded by oil income, was the main provider of jobs, housing, and other benefits. The social contract implied that the state would take care of its people while they accepted an authoritarian model of governance. However, with lower oil prices, a global shift away from hydrocarbons, a burgeoning youth demographic, and high youth unemployment, maintaining that social contract has become challenging for the Middle East's oil-producing states.
In response, Gulf state governments are increasingly promoting non-oil, non-state-funded business, encouraging young citizens to become entrepreneurs, and trimming public sector budgets. "There is growing unease as governments try to push citizens from public-sector jobs to more precarious private-sector employment and to cut oil-funded welfare benefits," confirms Frederic Schneider, a senior non-resident fellow at the Qatar-based Middle East Council on Global Affairs, or ME Council.
For instance, in January, the Saudi government introduced a "golden handshake" scheme, encouraging Saudis to move from the public sector to the private sector by offering them incentives. These new economic projects have also been accompanied by a discourse that almost portrays government jobs—the ones their parents and grandparents were promised as part of the social contract—as the easy, or even lazy, choice, a UAE-based researcher told DW.
Simultaneously, Gulf states are striving to attract foreign workers needed for non-oil sectors by changing rules on foreigners' property ownership and long-term residency, as well as loosening some religious and social restrictions. The UAE began this process in the mid-2000s, while Saudi Arabia only started recently, instituting a skilled workers visa scheme from mid-2025 and allowing foreigners to own property from 2026 onwards.
Saudi Arabia also issued a 2021 ultimatum stating that foreign companies wouldn't be eligible for government contracts unless they had headquarters in Saudi Arabia. These top-down economic transformation projects are causing new social tensions as they clearly prefer certain types of foreigners, noted the UAE-based researcher. With Emiratis and Saudis being pushed into or wanting to join the private sector, new migrants are increasingly seen as labor market rivals.
Additionally, there are new social and cultural frictions. Conservative locals have been upset by measures aimed at making foreigners more welcome. For example, debates about changing the traditional weekend from Friday and Saturday to the more international Saturday and Sunday, increased focus on non-Islamic holidays like Christmas, and reported increases in prostitution and alcohol consumption, allegedly due to foreigners.
"In a sense, the shift that took place in the UAE in the mid-2000s came from representing these practices, these new lifestyles, and so on, as a sort of necessary evil," a sociology researcher explained. For example, some alcohol sales—traditionally not allowed in Islamic countries—had to be permitted so foreigners would want to live in the UAE.
"In Saudi Arabia, where that shift is just starting, these prohibited things are now being promoted as essential, to put Saudi Arabia on the map and to make Riyadh a global city attractive to foreign tourists and investors," the researcher added.
In the UAE, those social tensions are further exacerbated by the conflict in Gaza, argues the ME Council's Schneider. "In the UAE, the influx of Israeli businesses, including from the security sector, and tourists through normalization means the country is hosting businesses and individuals that are immediately involved in the ongoing genocide in Gaza." The International Association of Genocide Scholars recently stated that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, although Israel denies this.
Speaking to Gulf state locals, Schneider has noticed growing disenchantment with the West, whether due to perceptions of hypocrisy and complicity around the Gaza conflict or because former allies like the US appear less reliable. "Foreign businesses are increasingly seen as taking away business from locals," he notes. "For example, the massive amounts spent in Saudi Arabia on Western consultancies for Neom and other transformation projects are eyed with discontent from ministries and government agencies, but also increasingly from domestic consultancies wanting involvement."