Dubai: While today’s labour market doesn’t offer as much employment opportunities as before, many professionals in the UAE are still quitting their jobs, a new research has found.
Recruitment specialist Robert Half has recently polled human resources (HR) directors based in the UAE. Nearly four in ten (39 per cent) said they have noticed an increase in the number of workers opting to resign over the last three years, despite reports of job cuts and hiring freezes.
About 38 per cent of HR directors said that concerns over company performance or redundancy fears are prompting employees to look for other employment opportunities elsewhere.
There’s also a growing dissatisfaction among employees over compensation packages, with 31 per cent of the respondents citing “lack of remuneration and/or recognition” as one of the major reasons that led to higher voluntary turnover in their organisation.
About a quarter (24 per cent) said that stagnant career prospects is another driving factor, as well as poor work-life balance (21 per cent).
“While companies are facing economic uncertainty, HR directors have noted that voluntary turnover has increased. The highest reason professionals have cited is concerns over company performance and fear of redundancy, closely followed by insufficient remuneration/recognition,” Gareth El Mettouri, associate director at Robert Half UAE, told Gulf News.
El Mettouri said that workers in the UE are aware that while economic uncertainty remains, there are still better job offers waiting for them.
“Professionals are becoming wise to the fact that there are other opportunities around, and as such, are wanting to find opportunities that are more suited to their long-term career goals,” he added.
Professionals in the UAE aren’t the only ones quitting their jobs amid the current economic environment. In a recent survey by Deloitte among the so-called millennials-- those who were born after 1982 -- it was found that there’s a significant number of professionals looking to move on to the next employer.
Among the 7,700 respondents representing 20 countries, about one in four would quit their jobs next year. By the end of 2020, two of every three people expect to leave, while only 16 per cent see themselves staying with their employer about ten years from now.
Among those who are planning to leave, 71 per cent admitted that they are not happy with how their leadership skills are being developed. The least loyal employees said that they’re “being overlooked for potential leadership positions and their leadership skills are not being fully developed.”
“This remarkable absence of loyalty represents a serious challenge to any business employing a large number of millennials, especially those in markets where millennials now represent the largest segment of the workforce,” Deloitte said in its report.
Job hiring in the UAE remained generally weak, with vacancies posted online registering a significant decline in September compared to a year earlier.
The latest Monster Employment Index showed that recruitment activities in engineering, construction and real estate companies, as well as in hospitality, oil and gas, information and technology, telecommunications and chemicals industries registered negative growth in September.
However, recruitment specialists forecast an improvement in hiring outlook next year. They said that a number of projects currently in the pipeline, including those slated for Expo 2020, will soon open up opportunities for jobseekers in the UAE.
