Target
Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030 identified workforce productivity as a critical constraint on economic diversification. The vision document observed that non-oil sector productivity had been declining even as the sector grew — a pattern indicating that new economic activity was being generated through the addition of low-productivity labour rather than through efficiency gains and technology adoption.
The target was directional rather than precisely quantified: enhance labour productivity across all sectors to approach international benchmarks, with specific reference to productivity levels in comparator economies such as Norway, Singapore, and Ireland. The implication was clear — Abu Dhabi’s GDP per worker in non-oil sectors needed to increase substantially, which required investment in workforce skills, technology deployment, management practices, and the structural composition of economic activity.
The vision linked productivity to workforce composition, arguing that a shift from low-skilled expatriate labour toward higher-skilled workers — both national and expatriate — would drive aggregate productivity improvement. This connected the productivity objective to Emiratisation, education reform, and technology adoption goals elsewhere in the document.
Current Status
Abu Dhabi has made measurable progress on several dimensions of workforce productivity, while other dimensions remain challenging.
Knowledge Economy Development. The establishment of international university campuses (NYU Abu Dhabi, Sorbonne, Khalifa University), the growth of ADGM’s financial services cluster, and the development of technology companies including G42 have created pockets of high-productivity employment that did not exist in 2008. These knowledge-economy activities generate significantly higher GDP per worker than the construction, retail, and personal services sectors that characterised much of the non-oil economy at baseline.
Technology Adoption. Government-led digitalisation — smart city initiatives, e-government platforms, digital identity systems — has improved public sector productivity. Private sector technology adoption varies by sector and firm size. Large enterprises and government-related entities generally deploy modern enterprise technology; small and medium enterprises are more variable.
Sectoral Composition Shift. The growth of financial services, professional services, healthcare, education, and technology as shares of non-oil GDP represents a gradual shift toward higher-productivity activities. This compositional effect improves aggregate productivity even if productivity within individual sectors does not change.
Persistent Low-Productivity Sectors. Construction, domestic services, retail, and hospitality continue to employ large numbers of workers at relatively low productivity levels. Abu Dhabi’s ongoing development programme — including mega-projects on Saadiyat Island, Yas Island, and infrastructure expansion — sustains demand for construction labour at productivity levels that pull down aggregate non-oil productivity metrics.
The demographic structure compounds the challenge. Abu Dhabi’s expatriate workforce includes both high-productivity professionals (finance, engineering, medicine, technology) and large numbers of low-productivity workers (construction, cleaning, food services, personal services). The aggregate productivity metric is heavily influenced by the latter category due to its numerical dominance.
Analysis
Workforce productivity improvement is the most structurally difficult objective in Abu Dhabi’s Economic Vision 2030. Unlike oil production capacity (where a state-owned entity can execute a defined investment programme) or financial market development (where regulatory authority can create institutional frameworks), productivity improvement requires behavioural change across thousands of private enterprises and millions of individual workers.
The progress is real but uneven. High-productivity sectors are growing. Technology adoption is accelerating. Education quality is improving. But the absolute number of low-productivity workers in the economy has not declined — it has increased alongside the development programme that generates demand for construction, services, and support functions.
Approaching international benchmarks (Norway, Singapore, Ireland) by 2030 appears unlikely in aggregate terms, though specific sectors — financial services, energy, technology — may approach or match comparator country productivity levels.
Data Sources
Statistics Centre - Abu Dhabi workforce and productivity data. World Bank productivity indicators. IMF UAE Article IV Consultations. ADEK education outcome reports. Individual sector productivity benchmarks.
Assessment: At Risk
Abu Dhabi has invested substantially in the drivers of workforce productivity — education, technology, knowledge-economy institutions, and sectoral diversification toward higher-value activities. Pockets of international-benchmark productivity exist in financial services, energy, and technology. However, the aggregate productivity picture remains weighted by large low-productivity workforce segments in construction and services, and the target of approaching international benchmark levels across the economy is not on track for achievement by 2030. The At Risk designation reflects genuine structural progress that has not yet translated into broad-based productivity convergence with comparator economies.