Dubai: The slowdown in job hiring in the UAE is finally showing signs of abating, with recruitment specialists declaring that the number of vacancies has started to go back up again.
For active jobseekers out there, there are opportunities in industries like information technology, healthcare and education, among others. Professionals in demand include those with sales and business development, finance and accounting background, according to Monster.com.
The continued decline in the oil prices had earlier cast a grim outlook for the employment market in the UAE. A number of employers put off hiring and expansion plans and froze staff payrolls.
According to Morgan McKinley, the professional recruitment market will remain challenged in the first three months of the year as long as the oil price continues to decline, but UAE companies have just increased staff requirements by nearly 200 positions.
The number of jobs available went up from 7,621 in the third quarter of 2015 to 7,899 in the last three months of the same year, up by about 4 per cent.
However, there seems to be a decline in the number of professionals looking to change jobs, with jobseekers accounting for 37,999, about 3 per cent less than in the third quarter of 2015.
“Despite the flat numbers and the market compression caused by the price of oil, it was a busier quarter than Q3,” said Trefor Murphy, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at Morgan McKinley. “Companies made up the remainder of their hiring budgets in Q4 and this supported that market in [the same quarter].”
A separate analysis by Monster.com showed that recruitment activity last year was led by information technology and telecom/ISP industry. From January 2015 to September 2015, year-on-year growth in online recruitment in the industry still managed to grow at an average rate of 23 per cent, according to Sanjay Modi, managing director at Monster.com India, Middle East, Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.
The second best performing industry during the same period was healthcare, registering a 21 per cent growth, followed by banking, financial services and insurance (11 per cent), education (8 per cent), chemicals/plastic/rubber/paints, fertilizer/pesticides (6 per cent).
In terms of professionals in demand, those with qualifications and experience in software, hardware and telecom topped the table, posting 40 per cent growth.
Those with sales and business development qualifications were also highly sought after (18 per cent), as well as purchase, logistics and supply chain professionals (15 per cent). Finance and accounting positions grew by 13 per cent, while marketing, communications, arts and creative roles went up by 11 per cent.
Monster.com had monitored 11 occupational categories across 12 industries and tracked online job postings to establish a trend in the job market.
“The job market was very optimistic in 2015, even if the online hiring rate is still much below that of 2012,” the company said.
