Two weeks ago, Qatar announced 60% pay rises for Qatari citizens employed by the government, as well as a 120% hike for military officers. That news was greeted with mixed, if generally positive sentiment.

But next comes the obvious question: What about those non-Qataris who barely eke out a living? Namely, laborers and domestic workers.

Reports The Peninsula newspaper:

A debate is raging on Qatari social networking sites over whether housemaids, construction workers and private sector expatriate employees in middle-income and higher salary brackets be paid more or not. Many writing on the sites say that maids and low-income construction workers be paid more as nationals employed in the government sector have got massive salary raise recently.

As far as we’ve seen, there isn’t any local human rights or labor organization currently pushing this agenda in the public sphere.

The article also reviews some of the debate against Western expats, or other highly-paid groups, from receiving any additional funds. 

More interesting however, are the details offered on the actual pay rises:

‘Grade one’ government employees will now be drawing QR27,000 basic salary after the increment. The earlier scale was QR17,000.

Grade two and three state employees will be getting QR24,800 and QR19,000, respectively. Before the increment they were paid QR13,000 and QR12,000.

Read the full article for more details, as well as which governmental organizations are included.

Credit: Photo of construction workers in Qatar, by Omar Chatriwala