Free meal for laid off staff: Welcome to Dubai

DUBAI: Dubai may not be known for soup lines, but at least one hotel in the glitzy tourist spot is offering visitors left jobless by the economic slump a free meal. All unemployed dinner-seekers have to do is show up with their layoff letter in hand. The offer comes as the fast-growing but debt-heavy city of new skyscrapers grapples with its first mass layoffs in years. Several property developers have together laid off hundreds of employees in recent weeks. Companies in other sectors are considering job cuts of their own. Shuaa Capital, a publicly traded investment company based in Dubai, said Thursday it is laying off 21 employees. That’s 9 percent of its staff in the city.