Overview
The Republic of Yemen is located in the Arabian Peninsula and was established in May 1990 with the merger of North Yemen and South Yemen. Its boundaries include Saudi Arabia to the north, Oman to the east, the Red Sea to the west, and to the south both the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden. This location at the entrance to the Bab el Mandeb strait, linking the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean via the Gulf Aden, situates Yemen on one of the most active and strategic shipping lanes in the world. The capital and largest city in the country is San’a’ and on the whole, Yemen is still a developing country.
Staffing Needs

Yemen’s is an oil-based economy with high unemployment and weak governance and institutional structures. As a country, they are highly dependent of oil resources for revenue. The largest economic sector is in services (61.4% of GDP), with the industrial sector following close behind (30.9%), and also agriculture (7.7%). However, industry accounts for less than 25% of the labor force as most Yemenis are employed in the agriculture sector. Services, construction, industry, and commerce account for less than one-fourth of the labor force. Beyond oil refining, the manufacturing sector is confined to the production of consumer goods with handicrafts, small-scale production of cotton textiles and leather goods. Almost half of all industrial establishments are involved in processing food products and beverages with approximately 10% of the establishments classified as manufacturing mixed metal products such as water-storage tanks, doors, and windows. In fact, machinery and equipment encompass a good deal of imports to Yemen. This indicates a lack of skills and knowledge in the arena of creating these materials themselves (World Factbook-Yemen). Of the total population of Yemen, the labor force comprises only around 4% and of that 4%, around half are in agricultural labor (FAO-Country Profile). The lack of skills in the areas of manufacturing, which we would need, clearly indicate that we would need to staff all managerial roles with expatriates. A General Manager and Finance Manager will absolutely need to be sent over. I would also recommend a Technical Manager, Shop Operations Manager, Sales Manager, and possibly even a HR Manager. This totals at least 6 managerial roles that would need to be filled with expatriates from one of our current facilities. Demographically, as of July 2014, Yemen has an estimated population of 26, 052, 966. Of this population, the breakdown of the age structure is as follows:
Age Range
% of Population
0-14
41.7%
15-24
21.1%
25-54
30.9%
55-64
3.7%
65 +
2.6%

As seen in the above table, the highest proportion of the population of Yemen is in the 0-14 age range, and therefore not available as part of a local workforce. Education has been a large area of reform for Yemen. They are working diligently towards increasing the educational standards of their country, and as of 2010, the country was spending 10% of their Gross Domestic Product on education (Country Profile: Yemen). As of 2012, the adult literacy rate was 66% and as part of their educational reform, the government has committed to reducing illiteracy to less than 10% by 2025. Yemen has also applied for educational grants to focus on the quality of education and literacy as well as to increase equitable access to education for girls and women. This does indicate a forward thinking initiative that could increase the amount of skilled trade labor force in the future. However, there is still a lacking in availability in skilled trades in the current economy of the country. For the amount of skilled labor that is available, there may be a steep learning curve and an extremely large investment in training needed to produce workers of the caliber needed for our manufacturing. It may also prove difficult to find skilled labor. Local recruitment is not well developed and requires companies to input much more research to find skilled