UAE employees expect double digit pay hikes in 2014

After years of nondescript increments, UAE employees are eyeing a windfall in salary hikes this year. A majority of professionals in the workforce claim to have received nothing or only marginal increments last year even as official statistics show that the cost of living went up as compared to the year before.

Despite the poor show seen on the pay front in 2013, these very employees are hopeful about 2014 and believe that fatter hikes are bound to come their way. These could be as high as 15 per cent, as believed by a third (32 per cent) of UAE respondents to a poll.

The latest Mena salary survey conducted by job portal Bayt.com and market research agency, YouGov suggests that expectations of a pay-hike in the UAE are high this year despite the fact that 44 per cent of those surveyed said they didn’t receive anything in 2013 and 46 per cent are dissatisfied with their current salary.

Suhail Masri, VP of Sales, Bayt.com, believes “that salaries are not consistently keeping pace with the rising cost of living in the UAE. This seems to be a general trend across the Mena region that companies must address if they want to win today’s increasingly intense war for talent.”

Sundip Chahal, CEO of YouGov Mena, added: “Overall, employees across the Mena region seem rather dissatisfied with their salary – with a significant minority unable to save anything of their wages. Undoubtedly, employees feel short changed and in the UAE, in particular, where we see relatively low loyalty, an increase in cost of living and a presumption other employers pay more, we may see significant churn over the next year as employers struggle to match employees expectations.”

Despite the unhappiness about the average pay increments in the country, the survey shows the number of optimistic respondents higher than what an earlier online poll run by Emirates 24|7 revealed. The latter stated that UAE employees are not necessarily upbeat about their salary going up this year, too.

The poll conducted by this website showed that 47 per cent of the respondents do not expect any salary increment this year. Of the remaining 53 per cent who expect a hike speak of only moderate increments that are not reminiscent of the heydays when employees had considerable negotiating powers. It was only the minority (only 12 per cent) who expect a hike of more than 10 per cent, way less than the predicted figures by the current survey.

A general industry survey, published by HR consultancy Towers Watson in the beginning of this year, said UAE salary increases are projected to average 5 per cent and Morgan McKinley suggested salaries to grow by a 6 per cent to 8 per cent in 2014.

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