US firms here may start hiring

US businesses in Dubai see their human resources being restructured and strengthened in 2010, Bilal B Sabouni, a member of the Board of Directors of the American Business Council (ABC) of Dubai and Northern Emirates, told Emirates Business.

"The economic recovery has begun. And organisations that cut staff during the global economic downturn will have to soon decide their human resource strategy for this year. They may decide to get back to their original structures and therefore beef up their manpower to what they had two years earlier," Sabouni, who is also Vice-President, Programmes with the ABC, said.

In a meeting held in Dubai recently, the ABC discussed that 65 per cent of employees in Dubai-based companies are looking forward to change jobs this year. "This may be triggered by a wave of hiring by Dubai based companies," Sabouni said.

Most of the US companies operating in the Middle East have their head quarters in Dubai because of its superior infrastructure and easier access.

There are over 600 American organisations that vary in size currently operating in Dubai and the Northern Emirates. Currently, the American Business Council represents about 200 of these companies as corporate members with an additional 300 American businessmen and businesswomen with individual ABC-member memberships.

The ABC has identified four areas that require bolstering in 2010. "Besides human resources, these areas include senior management and leadership of organisations, regional sales and marketing and customer service," Sabouni said.

The companies belong to a variety of categories from logistics to healthcare, pharmaceuticals and insurance. "American companies are collectively taking a look back at 2009 and assessing what damage was done to their multi-year plans, evaluating how best to recover from any losses during the recession while at the same time also achieving 2010 annual targets, and further fine-tuning their strategic positions in the Middle East," Sabouni said.

Sabouni termed the Middle East as an "important" and "potentially lucrative" region. "Most US companies are re-thinking the levels of their presence and are re-evaluating the required organisational structures in place to most efficiently and effectively cover the operational area," he said.

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