Ali, an Iraqi writing at Iraq The Model, makes an interesting observation about the economic circumstances of the average Iraqi in Baghdad. It goes against the grain of what has been reported about the employment (and security) situation there. He writes:
I found there that it has become very common that some restaurants and hotels are using work agencies to get workers from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and the Philippines. Moreover, many families in Baghdad started to hire maids through work agencies; the family would pay 1300 $ for the agency to cover the travel cost of the maid who will get a monthly payment of 100 $ at least.
The question is why don't these people hire Iraqis instead? And why do these people (workers) risk their lives in coming to work in such a "chaotic area"? I think the answer to the 1st question is that most Iraqis can easily find a job that pays more than 100 $ with less effort and commitments. For example a kid (in summer vacation)who help in cleaning the streets and river banks get paid about 120$ by the city hall a month for about 5 hours work.
The answer to the 2nd question can be explained in 2 ways; there seems to be lots of job opportunities in Iraq as a result of private businesses' improvement and an increase in the life standard of a good proportion of Iraqis that made this process (importing workers) a real business and that enabled Iraqis to pay reasonable amounts of money to those workers that make it worthy the risk. The other answer might be that the security conditions in Iraq is not that scary to prevent workers from coming to Iraq and also that Iraq job market seems better for simple workers at least than that in India, Philippines, Sri Lanka and many other Asian countries!!
For years before the war the opposite was true, and no foreigner workers were able or interested to come to work in Iraq, and after all this "destruction and chaos and imminent civil war" this seems to have changed and Iraq has suddenly become a place that attracts many jobless people from different countries! Can anyone give me a reasonable explanation other than what I suggested?!