The UAE Minister of Labor officially inaugurated the third annual Human Assets Expansion Congress Mid-East

After welcoming the industry professionals to the congress, HE Saqer Ghubash congratulated the organizers.

"I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank naseba for inviting the UAE Ministry of Labor to support and participate in this important congress,"said HE Saqer Ghubash.

The 3rd Annual Human Assets Expansion Congress Mid-East gathers 150 leading HR professionals to discuss the latest challenges being faced in the HR function as well as to source the most innovative solutions from 22 internationally renowned solution providers, such as Kelly Services, First Advantage, Generali, Cherazz, Ingentis, Manpower and Gulf National Consultants, just to name a few.

HE Saqer Ghubash started his presentation by reminding the audience that the Ministry of Labor has a large interest in developing human resources with a goal to ensure the needs of the UAE labor market are met. He also emphasized the importance of collaborating with other governmental institutions both federal and local, in an effort to plan and map out strategies which will motivate investments in human resources and enhance workers' competencies, skills and productivity.

"In this direction, the ministry recognizes the importance of engaging the private sector in developing and implementing these strategies and ensuring alignment between supply and demand in the Jobs market. Today we stand on the verge of a new era in HR planning, one that requires detailed elaborations of HR challenges and their root causes, to ensure that HR strategies become an integral component of the broader agenda of socio-economic growth,"

added HE Saqer Ghubash.

For instance, one of the main challenges nowadays is to avail job opportunities to nationals who are under the age of 30. 38% of the UAE nationals are 15 years old, and since the number of graduates and the rate of women's participation in the national workforce is on the rise, he said "we project that the size of the workforce will effectively double to half a million by 2020, compared to an estimated quarter of a million right now." This means that the national economy has to provide more jobs in the next 11 years than it has done over the past four decades.

The Ministry of Labor has therefore decided to implement new measures in order to face these challenges by:

1. Developing the financial sector with high added value and increasing its involvement in the national economy by setting a targeted financial growth plan and applying its appropriate policies.

2. Continuously reforming the educational system. This will create new employment opportunities for UAE nationals and increase the net skills and competency level of the UAE workforce.

3. Developing educational programs to fight against unemployment inclination through rehabilitation and continuous re-education and re-directing the financial support to the unemployed population.

4. Raising the level of technical skills and competency of the foreign workforce to minimize the difference between direct and indirect costs of local production and increase overall labor output.

5. Enhancing legal protection and sustaining legal rights of foreign workforce to maintain long-term stability of the job market.

"My concern is to reassure the importance of developing and strengthening the partnership between the public and private sectors through shaping up a common vision for the future of the national economy by drawing plans and policies to achieve our goals. We appreciate this partnership and are committed to further expand it, especially to develop and re-educate our human resources,"

concluded HE Saqer Ghubash, the UAE Minister of Labor at the 3rd annual Human Assets Expansion Congress Mid-East.