It is quite clear that increasing interest and priority are being given to manpower and employment policy issues by governments of Arab countries. This is largely because of the social and political pressures arising from the emergence of a whole range of employment issues over the past decade or so. In the non‐oil‐endowed states unemployment has often been at levels which have caused public concern. In the oil‐exporting, capital‐rich states, however, the problems have been rather different with imports of non‐national labour at levels which have touched off discussions about the wisdom of development strategies which rely to such an extent upon imports of labour.