Others wonder whether locally em-ployed Lebanese will be threatened by the wave of returning expatriates. “If and when Lebanese companies start hiring, they may be replacing, for the same salary, the less experienced and efficient employees by newcomers arriving with more experience,” al-Haj says.

Mougharbel shares that sentiment. “More people returning will decrease the already low salaries. The Lebanese market is small and cannot handle more than 50,000 job seekers returning before this affects the market [for] wages.”

The salary issue is an unpleasant one. Lebanese expatriates are keenly aware that most firms in Lebanon can’t afford to pay them the same salaries they may have received abroad, especially in the Gulf states. Sabbagh says engineers who make around $12,000 in Dubai will only make $2,500 to $3,000 in Lebanon. “They’re asking for far more than what the market can bear,” he adds. “They’re ready to compromise – after all, they need the job – but they’re still disappointed. It’s a major point in negotiations.”

Some returnees are more positive about making the transition. Rabih Choucair, 31, who’s still employed by an Am-erican company in Dubai, is one of those willing to give up part of his financial ambitions to find a job in Lebanon. “If I have to leave Dubai, I want it to be my decision – not to be made redundant,” he says. “I gave up on Dubai where now, fake jobs are posted online to show companies are doing well … Of course, I expect the money to be less but I can accept a lower salary if I can keep the same lifestyle.”

In terms of purchasing power, Le-banon is more competitive than, for ex-ample, Dubai. Many returning Lebanese have family homes and don’t have to worry about paying rent. Eventually however, many will look for their own property and may have problems finding one. “The housing crisis is a huge problem,” says Chaaban. “The average apartment costs $500,000 to $1 million in Beirut. Places with good infrastructure are very expensive.”

Plan B. Lebanon’s tough economic conditions may explain why some of the ex-patriates returning there see their move as temporary – a place they can go to look for opportunities elsewhere. In the case of Management Plus, it has received more than 400 requests from people searching for a job, but who wouldn’t mind going back to the GCC, preferably to Saudi Arabia or Kuwait.

“This is a transition,” says Mogharbel. “Job seekers in the Gulf are searching for jobs throughout the region and when they fail to find anything there they come back home and search from there. This has to do with the low salaries in Lebanon.”

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