Employers say they'll go slow on hiring

Employers’ employment sentiments in the UAE seem to have been challenged by the worsening Euro crisis and the global economic problems.
 
While the employment outlook is much better than what it was last year around the same time, the past optimism of the previous quarters is generally softening as employers report modest hiring intentions.

A poll by Emirates 24|7 indicates deterioration in the local job market. Overall, 62 per cent of employers who participated in the poll don’t see increasing the size of their workforce in the near future. The figures show that 42 per cent of the respondents plan to go slow on hiring as they fear a return of the 2009 slowdown. Besides, 20 per cent of the employers in the country are not sure if they should hire right now. The remaining 38 per cent are upbeat on hiring and believe the current rough phase will not last long.

“We were adding jobs until the second quarter of this year but things have slowed down. We don’t know what to expect in the near future. I will go slow in getting people onboard, it’s much better than laying off staff if things were to worsen  here due to global economic problems,” said one respondent.

However, some previous surveys suggest otherwise. According to a recent survey by Bayt.com and YouGov, majority of UAE companies are considering hiring in a year’s time. The findings of the survey show that employment opportunities are expected to open up in one year’s time. This time, the survey suggests, the private sector is expected to be in a growth momentum and more jobs can be expected to be at the junior level.

Another survey from Antal, an international recruitment company, shows that nearly 60 per cent of businesses in the UAE are looking to hire at managerial and professional levels, up from 46 per cent in the first quarter of the year. Sixty-eight per cent of companies also expect to hire staff for various middle and senior-level positions in the near future, it says.

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