Expo 2020 growth: UAE employers hiring now...

With just a few years from now, Expo 2020 has already lead to a huge demand for professionals in the country, with many UAE employers saying they are faced with a talent crunch.

According to an official at Thought Leaders Middle East, a retail and supply chain experts, it is expected that there will be a talent shortage across most operational sectors and this is pushing companies to aggressively poach the best talent from their competitors while ensuring that they retain their existing top achievers.

“With Expo 2020 only six years away, retailers must plan well in advance to meet the fast-shrinking talent pool if they have to keep ahead of their competition,” says Prakash Menon, Executive Director of Thought Leaders Middle East.

“In the months to come, we are going to witness a fierce war for talent among business groups and companies to retain not only their best employees but also recruit the leading achievers from among the competition’s ranks.”

Menon added that Dubai's winning the bid to host Expo 2020 was proving to be a major catalyst for development across all industry segments, sparking a flurry of major development announcements involving new shopping centres, hotels and tourist facilities to accommodate an estimated 25 million visitors.

The UAE is already looking at many countries to hire professionals as different businesses grow in the country.

Latest research data from LinkedIn shows that the UAE is in a strong position ahead of Expo 2020, in terms of building its talent pool and becoming home to world-class professionals. According to LinkedIn research, the country is winning almost twice more professionals than it is losing.

According to the research, 49,000 LinkedIn members have moved to the UAE during 2013, making it the next hot destination for acquiring talent in the Middle East region.  LinkedIn currently has over 1 million members in the UAE and over 10 million in the MENA region.

The study also showed that talent is mainly coming from India, the UK and the US internationally and Qatar and Saudi Arabia regionally. Top companies in the UAE that are tapping into this inflow of talent include Etisalat, The Jumeirah Group and Emirates Airlines.

With the country winning the right to host Expo 2020, more than 277,000 job opportunities in the UAE will be created between 2013 and 2021, according to Oxford Economics estimates.
 
This also means that companies will have to work harder to retain its existing employees. According to Menon most employees leave their present jobs not only for better opportunities with other companies but also because they find they are not learning anything new in their existing jobs.

“By giving employees greater control of responsibilities and investing in continuous training programs, regular promotions and incentives, companies can ensure that their staff remain satisfied with their personal growth and do not need to explore opportunities with the competition,” he said.