Business & Money | Sunday 28 February, 2016 12:41 pm |

The latest Middle East Job Index Survey, conducted by the Middle East’s leading job site, Bayt.com, and research and consulting firm, YouGov, has revealed that six out of every 10 working respondents in the UAE expect their employers to be hiring in the next three months; four in 10 saying they will be definitely hiring. The majority of respondents in the UAE said that, in the next three months, they will be mostly hiring sales managers (23%), receptionists (19%), accountants (16%) and civil engineers (16%). 

Hiring expectations in the UAE

According to working respondents in the UAE, 39% are ‘definitely hiring’ and 21% are ‘probably hiring’ in the next three months, while just 7% say that they are ‘definitely not hiring’ in the same time period. Focusing on future expectations, 73% of UAE working respondents state that their companies will be hiring in a years’ time, with 34% ‘definitely hiring’ and 39% ‘probably hiring’. On the other hand, 3% are ‘definitely not hiring’ and 16% ‘don’t know/can’t tell’ their intentions for recruitment in the coming year.

Among those hiring in the next three months in the UAE, a third will open positions to fill a maximum of five job roles, while 24% will be hiring for 6-10 jobs. Nearly half of them (49%) will be looking for ‘team leaders/supervisors’ and 45% will be looking to hire ‘mid-career candidates with no managerial responsibilities’, while a third will be looking to fill ‘managerial’ positions. 

More than half of the working respondents in the UAE (56%) claim that, over the last three months, their company has hired new employees, and 11% say that they had new hires in the last six months. 

Roles and experience employers are looking for

Ideally, UAE companies are looking for candidates with managerial experience (39%), while 31% look for mid-level experience (3 to 7 years). 28% are looking for candidates with experience in sales and marketing, and another 28% are looking to hire candidates with engineering experience.

Desired skills and qualifications

The most desired skill by UAE companies is the ability to work well in a team, with almost half of those surveyed (49%) claiming that their company values candidates who are ‘team players’. Good communication skills in Arabic and English, efficiency and productivity and leadership, are also highly valued skills for 46%, 41% and 40% of UAE working respondents, respectively. Good communication skills in English only and the ability to work well under pressure both follow at 39%.

As for the most sought-after educational qualifications, graduate/post graduate degrees in Business Management, Commerce and Engineering emerged as the most desired academic qualifications when looking for candidates in the UAE (all at 27%). 

Industries attracting top talent in the UAE

Respondents living in the UAE claim that ‘construction’ (40%), ‘banking/finance’ (34%), ‘tourism/hospitality’ (31%), and ‘recreation/entertainment’ (30%) attract and retain the best talents in the UAE.

Moreover, almost a third of UAE working respondents (32%) believe that their industry is more attractive as a potential employer when compared to other industries, while two in 10 consider it to be equally attractive. On a national level, more than half of respondents (51%) consider the UAE as a more attractive job market when compared to other countries in the MENA region. 

“At Bayt.com there are currently more than 10,000 jobs posted on the website on any given day. In the UAE alone, we have more than 4,000 job vacancies. This augments the tremendous amount of recruitment that takes place via the Bayt.com CV Search functionality for employers who prefer not to immediately advertise their pressing job vacancies, which recruiters can try for free on http://www.bayt.com/en/search-cv/.  Jobseeker registration on our website is growing at over 12,000 new professionals a day and continues to reflect a healthy appetite for jobs across the industrial and career spectrum,” said Suhail Masri, VP of Employer Solutions, Bayt.com.

 He continued, “Of particular note has been the uptake of corporate consumption of our proprietary branded career channel platform, Talentera, which empowers corporates big and small to seamlessly integrate and comprehensively manage, monitor and measure their entire recruitment function in-house using the award-winning technology Bayt.com has pioneered.”

“It is interesting to see the most popular job roles in the UAE have changed since our last survey in July, indicating the fluidity of the UAE market when it comes to employment options,” said Elissavet Vraka, Research Manager, YouGov. 

More than two thirds of UAE respondents work in the private sector (67%), with 27% of them said they work in a multinational company, and 20% in a small or medium-sized local company. 16% of the respondents are currently not working.

23% of working respondents claimed to be ‘junior managers/team leaders’, 22% ‘middle managers’ and 12% of the respondents said they were ‘directors or senior managers’. Of the UAE respondents surveyed, 17% work in the construction industry. 

Data for the Bayt.com Middle East Job Index Survey was collected online between December 8, 2015 and January 21, 2016, with a total of 1,232 online interviews conducted with respondents from the UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Pakistan.