Dubai: The recent decline in oil prices has led to a “softening” of recruitment in the region’s oil and gas sector, but there are still employment opportunities available in the UAE for those seeking new positions, experts told Gulf News.
Overall, demand for new employees is still on the rise in the UAE, with nine out of 10 companies expected to hire more staff this year.
Andrew Croft, chief executive officer at Reach Employment Services, said the decline in fuel prices, reduced revenues in the oil and gas industry and the negative sentiment has somehow dampened the recruitment activity in the sector.
This doesn’t mean hiring has stopped. In fact, some companies are looking for new talent to fill “critical” positions. In demand these days are professionals with a good background and qualifications in sub-surface and drilling operations for offshore projects.
“The negative sentiment over the past six months has already led to softening of recruitment within the oil and gas sector. However, organisations are required to recruit specific technical positions which are critical to the success of both upstream and downstream projects,” Croft told Gulf News.
“An example of this is the demand for sub-surface and drilling roles for offshore projects. The final point to remember is that while the oil and gas market is currently facing challenging head winds, it has experienced strong oil prices for the past five years.”
Some oil and gas companies in other countries have already laid off a number of their staff as a result of low oil prices. Baker Hughes, an oilfield services provider, recently announced plans to let go of about 7,000 employees, representing about 11 per cent of its manpower. Another US-based oilfield services company, Schlumberger NV, also said it would lay off 9,000 employees. Its chief executive, Dave Lesar, was quoted by Reuters as saying that the number of land rigs in the United States has dropped by 250, or about 15 per cent, over the last two months.
Croft said oil and gas companies in the UAE are “thoroughly reviewing their manpower strategies” for the year “with caution around adding headcount as the key theme”.
“While there is a clear trend of organisations outsourcing those employees to third-party companies, it is very important to ensure that those companies providing outsource services are 100 per cent licensed in the UAE,” Croft said.
According to Suhail Masri, vice president of sales at Bayt.com, recruitment remains stable in the oil and gas sector. “Job postings in the oil and gas sector have not registered a shock and hiring levels in the industry are pretty consistent with hiring levels last year, suggesting perhaps increased turnover and consolidation, if not growth.”
Alp Eke, senior economist at the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, said he doesn’t see massive layoffs in the region’s oil and gas industry, as oil production is forecast to increase and the UAE will continue to upgrade its facilities.
“I don’t think there will be staff layoffs in the oil and gas sector in this region. Some refineries might stop production to maintain the facilities and continue soon after,” Eke told Gulf News.
Besides, Croft pointed out that a recent survey they conducted among 200 companies in the UAE indicated that 91 per cent of the employers in the country intend to “strategically” hire additional employees this year.
Hiring is more prevalent in the private sector, with the banking and finance, retail, hospitality and healthcare services companies showing the highest demand.
Reach Employment Services, which conducted the survey, attributed the positive hiring trend to growing business and investment confidence, employment opportunities arising from Dubai’s hosting of the 2020 World Expo and government-led efforts to transition to a knowledge-based economy.
“Our survey results clearly show positive growth for the UAE employment market with 91 per cent of companies expecting to strategically hire this year, layer on top of this natural employee attrition and talent acquisition which will be a major focus for companies in 2015,” said Andrew Croft, deputy chief executive officer, Reach Employment Services. Etihad Airways has also announced this week that they are hiring more than 6,000 Emiratis over the next five years.
