UAE | Employment

Jobseekers should be prepared

Gulf News Archve Dubai is a dream destination for professionals but people should be careful about just arriving here to look for a job.

  • By Mahmood Saberi, Senior Reporter
  • Published: 00:44 April 4, 2008
  • Gulf News

  • There is a huge demand for number crunchers in the UAE.
  • Image Credit: Gulf News Archive
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Dubai: Landing in the UAE with a dream of finding the perfect job may become a nightmare, a recruitment consultant warns.

"Think 10 times before taking that route," says Deedee Estrella, a consultant with a recruitment firm that advertises for senior posts in the construction sector. "The cost of living is high here and the chances of landing a good salaried job are negligible," she said. "The risk of not recovering your investment is high."

She notes that people who come here on the visit visa option settle for less than what their skill sets are worth.

But if you are hired directly from your country, it is obviously a different situation and the opportunities here are "amazing", says the consultant. With the "endless" expansion in the construction sector there is a huge demand for engineers.

"Contractors are under increased pressure to raise salaries," says another recruitment agent. A project manager for instance can ask for a salary of between Dh90,000 (about $25,000) to Dh100, 000 ($27,000).

"Professionals in Sri Lanka, India and the Philippines realise there is a shortage in the market and are seeking higher relocation packages," he says.

"There has been a big change in the trends in the job market," says Anwar, general manager of a recruiting firm in Dubai. "The demand for people is very high but the quality of the skilled workers is not always so high," he says.

The reason is that people are staying back in their countries, especially because of the economic boom in some Asian nations like India and China. Countries in the region, from Qatar, Saudi Arabia to Morocco and Algeria in North Africa, have also invested heavily in construction projects, says Anwar.

But the expansion in construction here has had a "ripple effect" across all sectors, including banking and IT, he notes. "Name a country and you have people from there working in the UAE," says Anwar, when asked from which countries people are being hired. "You now have people from Eastern Europe and even the Americas," he says.

Besides engineers there is a huge demand for number crunchers like accountants, says Kaye, a recruitment executive. There has been a big growth in the finance sector, especially after the setup of the Dubai International Financial Centre, she says. "We always go to India for banking and finance professionals but the trend is now to look within the Gulf region itself," she says.

Asked how removing the sponsorship system would help, Anwar says that it will definitely ease setting up businesses here. "Things will move faster," he said. The Gulf region is the only place where you need a sponsor to work.

Labour ministers of the region recently debated the sponsorship system and the effects on the job markets if that were to be changed.

One of the major drawbacks of the system is that the work visa binds employees to one employer. If you wish to change jobs, then you have to undergo a cooling period of six months.

Since the late 1970s people have been lured here by attractive packages, tax-free wages and a chance to live in an exotic place. Dubai has become known as the Hong Kong of the Gulf.

But expatriates say things have changed in the recent past. "It's not the bargain it used to be when we first got here," says one Australian expat. High inflation is eating into salaries and wages and especially food and rent are getting expensive.

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