Working conditions at Al Jazeera English

Ask them to guarantee a no-objection certificate before you've even got the job and they will think you are just using them as a visa service rather than intending to work for them. Goodbye job offer.

You should assume that they will be your only employer in Qatar and if you part company with them you will be leaving the country. That's how it is for most people.

Hi Lotus77

Did you ever get your job with AJE? I was offered a job there a few weeks before your post and am still waiting for a contract.

Trying to arrange for that in advance would be great if one could rely upon that. However, in my experience, companies here often promise things they cannot or will not deliver. I suppose if you could get it IN WRITING, maybe that would hold up...but anything short of that and you'd be risking things.

Years ago I had to negotiate to get my letter of no objection by giving up all my accrued vacation pay and severance -- not a small sum, but in the end it was worth it to me to get this other job. But they had me over the coals; either I gave up the thousands that I had earned and was due, or they wouldn't give me the release. Take it or leave it.

If you ever get on some important person's bad side (and sometimes you aren't aware that you've irritated anybody -- but it's because you worked with their second cousin twice removed, and they once overheard an offhand remark you made at the water cooler...LOL! Seriously...), chances are you'll never get it -- hence the importance of getting things in writing, because you never know who will get their panties in a bunch about something you said or did before you leave.

Hope this helps. Qatar is a really lovely place; once you get here and get settled I think you'd enjoy it. But you have to take care because local laws aren't made to protect expat workers -- they're designed to guard national interests.

Good luck!

thanks everyone! learning a lot about working in qatar from this forum.

so would you arrange to have a non-objection letter before you take a job, or just when you want to leave?

i do quite a bit of commercial directing/camera work as well and there seem to be a few companies producing some good work in doha.

it's best to be prepared for the future.

thanks again!

...a letter from your current job/sponsor that basically "releases" you, gives you their permission to take another job with a different company in Qatar. Without it, when your job contract finishes, you basically have to leave Qatar for two years before you can come back and find a new job.

It's kind of like indentured servitude, and it sucks because it basically gives your employer control over your livelihood. So, say, you have a good job at X salary, and you stay there for your initial 2 year contract, and then another company in Qatar offers you a better package. Even though you have completed your two years at the first company, and you're getting a better offer from another company, you cannot accept a job at the other company because your current company can veto that by not giving your a letter of no objection.

But as an earlier poster said, besides Al Jazeera English, there really isn't much here in Qatar in terms of other tv/news stations, so I would guess that the whole no objection letter stuff would be less of an issue for you than for folks in other fields/businesses.

Whatever company sponsors you and brings you here - you have to have their permission to leave the company and work for someone else (in Qatar).

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Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

hi, thanks for all your comments!

could someone please fill me in on what a 'non-objection letter' is?

thx

hey amoud, i am just talking about someone I know in there, and she is not happy. besides her package compared to mine is not really good. i am sorry, it is just what i have heard from her.

Carol... low salaries? Al Jazeera has the highest salaries in Qatar!!! Plenty of people have gotten no objection letters, and besides if she comes as promotions producer from abroad where else in Qatar would she want to work? Qatar Television?

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"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock - Will Rogers"

i heard they are not good employers. someone i know from inside told me that. low salaries among other complaints. also, as a local company they refuse to give you the non objection letters.

good luck anyway.

As far as I know none of those things were ever taken away, they were just amending them as Al Jazeera became a network.

As for salary, it is on a pay scale so whatever scale your position is on will determine your ballpark pay.

"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock - Will Rogers"