'UAE firms to increase hiring in coming quarters'

A quarterly global survey of trends in both hiring rates and job cuts has found that the UAE employment market has proven steady this April, in line with an overall sense around the globe that the world's economy in now rightsizing.

The 'Global Snapshot' project from the multi-national recruitment firm, Antal International, asked over 17,000 organisations in major markets across 56 countries whether they were currently recruiting or shedding staff at a managerial and professional level and whether they intended to do so in the following quarter.

At 49 per cent, the number of companies hiring new staff in the UAE has gone down somewhat during the first three months of 2012. Such figures are still higher than those recorded this time last year, however, when recruitment levels stood at 46 per cent. Over the coming quarter, these rates will also rise above the halfway mark and match the predicted global average of 54 per cent.

The present rate of job cuts in the UAE is notably lower than the world average of 20 per cent. The percentage of businesses currently letting staff go in this country has remained in the teens this quarter at 14 per cent- rising just 3 per cent since December.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, firing rates are generally higher than for the UAE this March. Saudi Arabian companies are currently shedding staff at 19 per cent, while Bahrain's level of job cuts is significantly larger than those in the UAE at 47 per cent.

A number of sectors within the UAE's job market have been particularly active over the last three months. The banking and financial services, the entertainment industry and the healthcare sector have all recorded hiring rates of 100 per cent in the current snapshot. These areas seem to be busy across the Middle East, with recruitment figures in these sectors all above 80 per cent.

The healthcare industry in the UAE is also hosting the lowest predicted job cut figures for the coming quarter. None of the organisations surveyed are expecting to reduce staff headcount at the professional and managerial level over the next three months.

"The bad news is that overall hiring across the more than 17,000 organisations taking part in this edition of Global Snapshot is down since out last survey in December," says Antal's CEO, Tony Goodwin." The good news, however, is that it is only down by 1 per cent. And it seems that this level of activity will remain more or less constant over the coming quarter, suggesting that a degree of stability has finally returned to the global employment market for managers and professionals."

"However feedback from our consultants and managers in over 30 countries on five continents indicates that, whether an employment market is active or not, competition for the best talent at the professional and managerial level is consistently fierce. Why? Because the skills that companies need in conjunction with specific technical capabilities - such as effective people management and development, concise and clear oral and written communication, commercial awareness, entrepreneurship and innovation - are always in short supply. And in a world where businesses are having to change and adapt faster than at any other time in history to tackle both opportunities and challenges that situation is not likely to improve. In fact it's more likely to get worse. As the last annual survey of multi-national CEOs by PwC neatly pointed out, it's not just a question of being short of talent. It's being short of the right talent. Which means that whether you're in Bangalore, Beijing, Birmingham or Boston our old friend the 'war for talent' may turn out to be a struggle that simply has no end."

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