Mideast firms to hire more manpower this year

DUBAI, Apr 3 (Gulf News): Recruitment activity in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the rest of the Middle East region looks set to pick up this year, with the majority of employers planning to increase their headcount in the coming months.
The latest Hiring Outlook survey by Naukrigulf, which questioned over 230 recruiters across the Middle East, found that six out of ten (61 per cent) companies are expected to recruit new employees in the first half of 2014.
The top recruiters are companies from the real estate, construction and engineering, oil and gas, retail and hospitality sectors.
Some of the employers, about 10 per cent, are planning to hire for more than 100 jobs, while the majority (51 per cent) intend to recruit for less than 10 positions.
Professionals with longer experience are more likely to find vacancies than those who are fresh out of college or have just started their career. According to Naukrigulf, 44 per cent of the recruiters expect the most number of jobs to be created for candidates with experience of four to eight years.
Hiring specialists said the real economic growth in the Gulf economies, as well as the successful bids to host the World Expo in Dubai and World Cup 2022 in Qatar, is driving the recruitment of new employees in the region.
"The region is gaining greater international prominence as Qatar and UAE are preparing to host major international events, [which is] likely to boost investment and employment," GulfTalent said in its report.
The World Expo is forecast to create 200,000 jobs over the next five years, while the World Cup is anticipated to create another 1.5 million positions. The economies in the Gulf are growing at a healthy pace on the back of high oil prices and government infrastructure spending.
Tarun Aggarwal, business head at Naukrigulf.com, said their findings indicate a "stability" in the creation of new jobs in the Middle East. "With the global economy recovering and Dubai hosting the Expo 2020, we see a positive sentiment in the recruitment community. Actual on ground hiring has a lag effect, however, we expect this year to be good for new job creation," he said.
Although the hosting of the World Expo and World Cup are still years away, recruitment levels in the region are already on the rise. Guy Rickett, CEO of Cazar, said they have noticed a 21 per cent increase in the number of hires across their clients in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.