Who's hiring in UAE: Where the jobs are

Consumer goods/FMCG, food & packaged food, home appliance, garments/ textiles/ leather, gems & jewellery leads all sectors when it comes to job opportunities in the country. On the occupation front, healthcare professionals exhibit maximum annual improvement in demand even in January.

The latest findings are based on a year-on-year comparison and are released by Monster Middle East. The employment index shows the UAE eased 13 per cent between January 2013 and January 2014.

Overall, for the region, the index has registered a 17 per cent year-on-year growth in online opportunities between January 2013 and January 2014. Online recruitment has edged up by an additional seven per cent on the month, the findings show.

The regional index has been exhibiting strong annual recruitment trend. January marked the fifth positive year-on-year and the fourth successive double-digit growth in the series. BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), engineering, construction and real estate sectors were among the top to present notable growth in online recruitment activity between January 2013 and 2014.

BFSI (up 37 percent) was the top annual gainer among all industry sectors even this month as it charted fourth successive double-digit annual growth. Retail/trade and logistics (up 19 per cent) saw online recruitment activity rebound as the sector registered a positive growth in monthly hiring activity following low levels the previous two months. Year-on-year, the sector recorded a double-digit growth for the first time since November 2013.

Online recruitment activity in the hospitality (down three per cent) sector continues to hover below the level achieved in January 2013. The sector, however, registered a positive three per cent month-on-month growth having charted negative growth rates in November and December 2013.

The traditionally strong sector - oil and gas (down two per cent) was the only sector to witness fewer opportunities on the month. Production/manufacturing, automotive and ancillary (down 19 per cent) registered the most notable year-on-year drop among all industry sectors even this month.

Of all the countries monitored by the index, Qatar has exhibited the maximum growth. On the whole analysts have portrayed a favourable growth prospect for the GCC countries in 2014. Qatar is expected to keep outperforming the other five GCC states while the 2014 growth forecast for UAE has been raised for the previous forecast of September 2013.

Of all the occupations tracked by the index, marketing & communications/arts/creative professionals saw a dramatic 59 per cent increase in online demand between January 2013 and January 2014. The rate of annual growth improved 12 percentage points for healthcare (up 14 per cent) professionals between December’13 and January’14. The group registered a double-digit year-on-year growth for the first time since June 2013.

Customer service (down 33 per cent) and purchase /logistics/supply chain (down four per cent) are the two groups to record a negative growth on the year.

Speaking of each country in the bloc, online job availability improved in five of the seven territories.

Qatar (up 26 per cent) followed by Egypt (up 25 per cent) led all seven countries monitored by the index as the pace of long-term growth improved further. The largest economy, Saudi Arabia, ranked fourth in the year-on-year growth chart despite nine percentage points moderation in the growth rate between December’13 and January’14. The Kingdom also exhibited the steepest month-on-month growth among all monitored countries.

UAE charted the most notable annual decline among countries for the eighth month in a row. Oman (down one per cent) and UAE (down 13 per cent) registered negative growth year-on-year.

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