Aaction should be taken to bring rents back down to reasonable levels, not just because of the misery that it is causing to expatriate staff but because of the harm it threatens to do to the country, Qatar's Gulf Times wrote recently in its editorial, commenting on what it described as the "rocketing cost of accommodation in Qatar."
After years of stability, many rents have been ratcheted up two-fold or three-fold. It is not just expatriate workers who are feeling the pinch: companies are affected by rising commercial rents, by demands from desperate staff for higher allowances, by the loss of long-serving employees who can no longer afford to live in Qatar and by the need to increase the salaries offered to attract replacement staff to the country, the newspaper added.
