Will you leave your job owing to bad salary? Majority of UAE professionals do so

The cost of losing an employee is more than the expenses associated with bringing a replacement on board.

Having said that, companies continually let workers walk away, both average and good ones, for a myriad number of reasons.

There is quite an extensive list of reasons why employees walk out of the door, but the most common one that is seen in the UAE and the Middle East region at large is bad pay.

According to Middle East Workplace Dynamics, a new survey published by online job portal Bayt.com, the main reason employees in the region left their previous job was because of bad pay. One-fifth (19.8 per cent) of respondents said bad pay was the primary reasons that prompted them to quit their job for a better paying one.

The next major reason (for 18.1 per cent respondents) that pushed people out of one office to another was that they found a better role in their new workplace. The third main reason (for 17.5 of respondents) on the list for people quitting was no clear advancement path in the organisation they worked for.

Even when in their next job, employees have certain expectations of the companies they work for. Bayt findings show that in their next job, the majority of professionals (20.3 per cent) are looking for companies that will help them develop their skills and provide learning opportunities and training programmes.

A good work environment (18.8 per cent) and better pay (16 per cent) follow as important factors as well.

Ideally, respondents would like to stay in a job for ‘as long as possible’ (44.2 per cent), though a fifth (19.5 per cent) claim to like to stay 3-to-5 years before moving on. Eight out of every 10 respondents (81.6 per cent) have an online CV and professional public profile, and 96.6 per cent are always open to new career opportunities.

The majority (54.2 per cent) apply for jobs regularly, though 45.8 per cent prefer to take a more passive approach to their job search and wait for employers to find them based on their online CV.

The survey also shows that a majority do seem to have been affected by a bad job market. Almost nine out of 10 respondents (87.7 per cent) state that they have friends and family in the Mena region who have been affected by unemployment. However, 62.7 per cent believe that the job market in their country of residence is picking up, among which 30.3 per cent state that it is doing so ‘very quickly’.

The industries that are seen to attract the most talent are oil, gas and petrochemicals (30.2 per cent), followed by IT and telecommunications (24.1 per cent). Respondents have a preference for full-time employment in a company (78.1 per cent), with only 7.9 per cent claiming to prefer entrepreneurship and 7.5 per cent preferring part-time employment in a company. A further 6.5 per cent prefer freelancing.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.