Current statistics suggest that the region’s job seekers are eager for the sophisticated recruitment interface that Bayt.com provides. In a recent poll series conducted by Bayt.com, virtually all polled regional professionals – 94% – expressed a willingness to start a new career, but many noted that they were unsure about how best to pursue their career goals. Bayt.com’s comprehensive online job site, with postings from across the region, smart-search options, job alerts, and an array of affordable professional career services, offers an ideal solution for those seeking a new job or even a new career.
“Bayt.com has always prided itself on its commitment to the markets it serves and to the region’s populations in all their wonderful diversity. It is our vision to empower MENA professionals as they build their lifestyle of choice by providing unparalleled access to superior job opportunities – and the tools to connect effectively with leading employers. With our anniversary initiative, we aim to raise the bar even further and enable the region’s top candidates to make positive career decisions through continued free, instantaneous access to all the region’s hottest job opportunities online on www.bayt.com.”
The free job postings offer will give employers visibility with all job seekers registered with Bayt.com as well as with the leading online traffic the Middle East’s #1 jobsite generates on a daily basis, traffic that is considerably greater than any other jobsite in the region. The free jobs may be posted online any time between November 10th and November 22nd and will be activated to go live on November 22nd collectively and remain live for a month after that.
“With this unique gesture, we are inviting regional job seekers and employers to experience the myriad benefits of Bayt.com’s superior online recruitment tools and to take their job search or recruitment efforts to the next level while together unharnessing the tremendous promise and opportunity in MENA job markets today,” concluded Lama Ataya, Head of Marketing, Bayt.com.
For job listings and to see how the Middle East’s number one range of recruitment solutions can help your business, visit www.bayt.com/en/recruiting-solutions/
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Around the Middle East and North Africa region, countries reported varying propensity to hire as part of the Jobs Index. More than a third of respondents in Oman, 34%, said they would definitely be hiring in the next three months. This was closely followed by Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, where 31% and 30% respectively said their organisations will definitely be recruiting new staff in the coming months.

Around the Gulf, the countries largely varied in terms of their intentions to hire more staff. In Qatar, 55% said they would definitely or probably hire in the coming three months, compared to 53% in Kuwait and just 47% in Bahrain. The figures suggest that organisations in Saudi Arabia are currently faring the best during this current economic cycle.

The Jobs Index (JI) is conducted to gauge perceptions of job availability and hiring, to identify job trends and to provide an understanding of the key skill sets and qualifications required in the Middle East job market.
When asked how many jobs would be available in the next three months, 42% of respondents said that there would be less than five jobs ‘on offer’ for job seekers in their organisations. Another 24% said that their organisations would be offering around six to 10 jobs, while at the other end of the spectrum, just 3% of the respondents said that more than 100 jobs would be available.

In terms of the jobs that would be available in the next quarter, junior members of staff are the most likely to be employed; 22% of organisations said that they would be looking to employ junior executives, followed by 21% that said they would be looking to hire on an executive level. Unsurprisingly, limited C-suite jobs are going to be on offer: 2% said they would be seeking to appoint a new President, 5% said they plan to appoint a CEO, and 6% said they would advertise vacancies for a COO, CFO or CMO.

According to the study, organisations around the Middle East favour employing staff that are graduates in the fields of engineering or business management: 21% of organisations agreed that these two were the most important disciplines. The Gulf countries all showed a significant preference for graduates in these areas. Less important qualifications according to the study were qualifications in law and hospitality, with just 5% and 4% of organisations respectively agreeing that these are important when selecting staff.

“This data with regard to preferred qualifications is interesting, but it is perhaps more indicative of the dominant industries that exist in the region, rather than the fact that some types of qualifications are seen as worth less than others,” commented Lama Ataya, Head of Marketing, Bayt.com. “Considering that the Gulf region is growing significantly in terms of its industrial output and in terms of its intellectual capital as a finance and commerce global hub, then the case is very clearly made as to why graduates in these fields are likely to find it easier than others to find employment.”

Good communication skills in English and Arabic were clearly advantageous among the region’s organisations when selecting a new employee: 60% said that these skills were most desirable when choosing potential candidates. Lebanon and Saudi Arabia were the countries that placed most emphasis on these bilingual skills, with 71% and 69% respectively citing them as the clear skill priority. In the UAE, just 55% of employers stated that English and Arabic language skills were important; while being a cooperative and helpful team player and possessing good leadership skills were all similarly important traits in new recruits.

“As many regional companies struggled to stop spiraling costs during the recession, many people caught in the cross-fire lost their jobs. It follows now, as business picks up, that companies find themselves short-staffed and in need to recruit. This is another indication that the economic situation is improving,” said Joanna Longworth, Chief Marketing Officer, YouGov Siraj.
The JI is in part gauged by asking the respondents what their hiring expectancy is in a year’s time; this forms the Hiring Expectancy Index (HEI). In the long term, 66% of the region’s organisations expect to hire, suggesting widespread optimism for the future. Oman, Algeria and Saudi Arabia were found to be good potential countries for job seekers, with 57%, 45% and 43% respectively saying that they will definitely hire. In the UAE, 33% of organisations said that they will definitely be hiring in a year’s time, while another 30% said they will probably hire in a year. All of the Gulf countries, with the exception of Qatar, came across as optimistic for the future in terms of projected capacity to hire. Following Saudi Arabia’s positive lead, 38% in Bahrain and 34% in Kuwait said they will definitely be hiring next year, compared to Qatar’s total of 31% – the lowest figure among all the surveyed countries. Notably, respondents in Algeria (45%), Jordan and Tunisia (35% each) all said they will be hiring in a year’s time, suggesting significant predicted growth in these countries.

When asked how they rate their current country of residence as a job market compared to those around the rest of the region, respondents in the UAE were the most positive about their country: 49% said it was much more attractive than other countries. Positivity about current country of residence was also felt in KSA (44%) and Qatar (38%).

Asked which industries the respondents feel are attracting or retaining top talent in their country of residence today, the majority agreed it was either banking and finance (32%) or telecommunications (31%). “This is most likely as a result of the perception that banking and finance and telecoms positions are the highest paid in the region, and as a direct result, manage to retain their well-paid talent,” explained Longworth.

“By launching the Jobs Index and conducting it quarterly to gauge how the region’s employers feel they are poised – or conversely – poorly-placed to hire in the coming months which can then be compared over time, we will be eliciting a clear overview of the way that the region’s job market is moving – allowing us to chart its improvements, stability or indeed decline,” commented Ataya.

“We therefore want to use this data to enable regional businesses, HR professionals and other relevant industry stakeholders to have an up-to-date series of indicators about job market trends across the Middle East.”

Data for the October 2009 Jobs Index was collected online between 1 and 21 October 2009 with 5,084 executive managers/HR managers/senior officials from the UAE, KSA, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Pakistan. Males and females aged over 18 years old, of all nationalities, were included in the survey.

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Money, however, is an obstacle to starting a brand new career: 10% said that while they want to, they can’t afford to. Furthermore, 6% said the obstacle to starting a new career is that they feel too old, while 4% said it is too unrealistic .Only 6% of the region’s professionals said they do not wish to start a new career.

The ‘Career Reinvention in the Middle East Workplace’ August/September online poll series conducted by Bayt.com sought to understand from employees whether they are considering a change in their career path, what steps they would take in case of that change and the main drivers behind that change.

The region’s professionals were also asked whether they would consider going back to school to learn skills for a new career: 87% said they would like to go back to school, but of these, 38% said they can’t afford to, and 15% said it would be conditional on it being a short course; the other 34% stated they would go back to school without specifying any conditions. The poll found that 5% of professionals wouldn’t consider going back to school because they have too many family obligations, and 4% said they no longer have the patience to be back in school.

“It is very interesting to see that the region’s professionals place a lot of value in education, with the overwhelming majority agreeing that they would go back to school to develop themselves,” stated Lama Ataya, Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications,, Bayt.com. “There is a growing global trend for adults – regardless of their age and regardless of their career experience – to go back into education at some point in their lives. From these results, it seems that the region’s professionals are also following suit.”

Asked why they are changing, or would change careers, respondents came back with a variety of reasons. The most popular choice for a career change among respondents is to pursue their dream or passion (32%). Significantly, a fifth of respondents said they would change their career because they find they can’t grow professionally in their current career, while another 16% said they would change purely for financial reasons. Other reasons that professionals cite for changing careers include not being able to actually find a job in their current career area (10%), changes in the economy of the country they live in (7%) and boredom with their current career (7%).

“That such a high proportion of respondents have changed, are changing, or would change their career to ‘follow their dream’ shows that the days of a ‘career for life’ are over and nowadays, people are more confident about making a complete shift. For some, however, the reason for changing or wanting to change is born from frustration or disappointment: financially, growth-wise, or just through boredom, which could be a signal to organisations that something needs to be done to further nurture these employees, or address their career uncertainties,” commented Ataya.

If the professionals could engage in any career they wanted, engineering and IT proved to be popular choices with 20% and 18% respectively stating they were industries of choice. Financial services (15%) followed by education (11%) were the next most favoured industry choices. By contrast, just 10% said they would like to work in advertising and media, 8% in healthcare and 5% in architecture and interior design.

“Interestingly, engineering, IT and financial services were the three most popular choices among the region’s professionals of industries they would like to work in – despite being affected by the economic downturn It may be that these choices are driven by financial motives, as the three have long been reputed to be amongst the region’s highest-paying industry sectors, or it may simply be that the region’s professionals feel like having a complete change of industry from their current path,” said Ataya.

Almost three quarters of the respondents said that they knew someone who has changed their career mid-career; but with different outcomes. Of the 73% who stated they do know someone who had changed, the majority – 53% – said that they are very happy, while the remaining 20% said that they are struggling in their new career.

Yet despite the strong desire to change careers among the region’s professionals, for the most part, respondents feel they would be staying in their current career. More than a third, 34%, said they see themselves staying in their current career path until they retire and just a quarter said they are ready to change careers today. A further 6% said they will stay in their current job for another year only and 14% envisage themselves staying in their current job for the next 1-3 years. Just 9% said they see themselves staying in their current career for the next 4-6 years, and 11% said it will be 6-10 years.

“In conducting polls such as these, we are provided with a very general snapshot of the way the region’s professionals are feeling about various aspects of their careers and the labour market in general,” noted Ataya. “Organisations around the region may be interested in using this kind of information and applying it to their businesses, in a bid to reveal areas where they may be able to improve their operations and procedures, to grow the careers of employees and keep them satisfied and engaged at work. This could mean considerable financial and time savings for these organisations, in the future.”

Data for the ‘Career Reinvention in the Middle East Workplace’ poll series was collected online between 24 August and 4 October 2009, with a total of 29,534 job seekers across the Middle East. This and other Middle East human resources research is available online on www.bayt.com

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