Almost every other nation is curtailing their imported labor due to economic contraction but this story shows just how complex it can get if you are imported labor in a country which is not your own. In Laid-Off Foreigners Flee as Dubai Spirals Down , foreigners are abandoning their credit cards, cars and have even done the more stupid thing of buying property in Dubai, on a temporary work visa....so now they are getting laid off. Dubai cannot provide them with a job and to make it even more interesting, Dubai has debtor's prison!

Sofia, a 34-year-old Frenchwoman, moved here a year ago to take a job in advertising, so confident about Dubai’s fast-growing economy that she bought an apartment for almost $300,000 with a 15-year mortgage.

An abandoned car in a parking garage in Dubai. One report said 3,000 cars were sitting abandoned at the Dubai Airport.