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29 March 2024

Emax to hire 500 across GCC

Published
By Waheed Abbas

Leading consumer electronics retailer Emax, a unit of well-diversified Landmark Group, plans to open 10 stores across the GCC and employ around additional 500 staff by the end of this year, said a senior official.

“We’re already present in UAE, Saudi and Qatar, Oman and Bahrain.

“The only GCC country where we don’t operate is Kuwait, where we are looking for opportunities. As and when there is an opportunity, we’ll open outlets.

“Currently, we have 32 stores in the GCC and by the end of the year, we’ll have 40 to 42 stores.

“Four will be opened in the UAE and the rest mainly in Saudi Arabia,” said Neelesh Bhatnagar, chief executive officer of Emax.

The retailer plans to open four more stores in the UAE this year adding around 200 more staff by the end of 2012.

“In the UAE, we have now nine stores. We opened two recently – one in Dubai Mall and one in Fujairah City Centre.

“We are expecting to open another four – if not more – in UAE this year - one each in Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah and two in Dubai.

“We are constantly looking for space, for example in existing malls we don’t have stores like Deira City Centre and Ibn Battuta Mall.

“We have been talking to landlords and leasing people; in case something comes up there those will be incremental,” Emax CEO added.

Bhatnagar told Emirates 24l7 that the retailer will add 40-50 employees for each store and roughly 200 for all the four outlets.

“For the each store Emax will add 40-50 staff. We’ll have 40 staff of our own; an outlet also creates employment for the brands which are present in Emax and most of these brands provide promoters.

“For example HP and Samsung will put their own persons. In all, each store requires 70-80 people; it means more than 300 people will be required for these stores.

“These jobs include store managers, sales people and cashiers,” he added.

With regard to recruitment staff, Bhatnagar said: “We have our own corporate HR staff in Landmark Group – which is one of the largest employers in the region across the GCC.

“We employ about 40,000 people. Our corporate HR supports all the divisions. What we normally do is we inform corporate HR; they have already listed agencies in their panel; they shortlist and finally somebody from the department goes to the recruit.

“In each country, we have recruitment agents. HR will inform them about the kind of people we need. It’s a typical like any other organisation.

“For example, in Philippines we have recruitment agents who will shortlist people and then ensure that everybody has all the credential and documents ready and the whole criteria are fulfilled.

“So people from the division go there to recruit people.”

He said the group has also started recruiting from Tunisia, Kenya, Syria, Jordan and Kazakhstan.

“We are exploring a lot new countries to bring people. Even within India, it’s not typical that Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore; we’re going to other cities like Kolkata as well.

“The group is also looking at Indonesia for recruitment. But the basic thing is we need people who can speak English or Arabic which are common languages in this part of the world.”