Global employment survey finds UAE job market still dropping but showing signs of levelling out

The percentage of organisations here expecting to shed staff in the next three months is also substantially lower than the worldwide average, suggesting that the jobs market is at least beginning to level out.

The 'Global Snapshot' from the international recruitment firm, Antal, asked 4217 companies in major markets such as western and eastern Europe, Africa, India, China and the USA whether they were currently hiring at professional and managerial level. It then asked whether they planned to do so in the coming quarter and whether they were currently letting staff go or were planning to do so in the next three months. Current hiring across the globe was down from 54% of respondents at the beginning of the year to 47% now. However the percentage of organisations intending to hire in the coming quarter had actually risen from 43% to 44%.

In the UAE 47% of businesses were currently recruiting and 50% expected to recruit in the coming quarter. 21% were in the process of reducing headcount and only 14% expected to do so over the next three months.

Elsewhere in the region the employment situation was a variable one. In Egypt, for example, 51% of businesses were currently recruiting and 65% expected to in the coming quarter.

Nizar Lalani, who runs Antal's operations in the UAE, says:

"Although the Gulf may no longer be in the 'boom' market of recent years hiring levels for professionals and manager are still relatively healthy and have only experienced a fairly minor drop from 56% at the beginning of 2009 to 47% now."

Lalani adds, "Innovative measures such as the fact that expatriates no longer immediately lose their visas along with their job have certainly helped here. Firing levels have begun to rise however, from 11% in our last report to 21% now."

Tony Goodwin, Antal's global CEO, says:

"Whilst the percentage of organisations hiring in the 32 countries surveyed has gone down, it has not plummeted in the way that the economic statistics, many pundits and the ever-cheerful IMF might have led us to believe."

"At the same time the percentage of organisations expecting to hire managers or professionals in the coming quarter has actually risen, albeit by a very modest 1%. And the number of businesses expecting to shed middle to senior level staff has remained almost exactly the same. The period of panic and unilluminated gloom does finally seem to be behind us. Recovery may still be a good way off, but it could be that we are now better prepared to pave the way to it than we have been for quite some time," he adds.