One has to wonder what he has been reading. Every airline is fighting for it's life and is cutting jobs....and the people that are affected are fighting their fight. Why does he think our fight is any different to that of a person in the UK for example?? And the layoff's haven't even started yet in the USA.....just wait. We are here in Dubai, and so is he(presumably), so yeah, he is going to hear about the Emirates layoffs front and center.
One clear difference is that with Emirates laying off 10 000 employees(was it 700 or 7000 cabin crew - so hard to get the truth here), we will have close to 40 000 people leaving Dubai, factoring in families and support staff and their families). I am willing to bet 40k people won't be leaving the UK when IAG does it's layoffs. To think that 40k people leaving Dubai will not have an economic impact on the city is woefully naive.
The issue is not EK but the fact that it is symptomatic of every company going through the same thing. EK is probably one of the strongest, so if every company fires 30% of it's staff, it's hard to see how that will not have a profound impact on Dubai.