Nearly half of the companies in the Gulf region plan to recruit local talent, revealed a new poll conducted by leading job site Bayt.com.

The online poll series on ‘Localisation Hiring Policies in the GCC’ found that 49.2 per cent of GCC companies were keen to hire locals, while a staggering 47.5 per cent admitted their company had a hard time recruiting local talent.

About 48.5 per cent of the respondents across the Mena said the company they work for adheres to a localisation hiring policy, while only 34.5 per cent said “no” and 17 per cent were unsure.

When asked if their company’s localisation policy is audited by any government entity, 43 per cent of the poll takers said yes, while 39 per cent stated no and 18 per cent seemed unsure.

Furthermore, 43.6 per cent of respondents said between 0-5 per cent of locals work for their company.

On ‘the average seniority of local citizens’ working with them, 20.3 per cent said that most locals join in at an intermediate level and 21 per cent stated at a senior level, while 23.7 per cent said locals get hired at an entry level.

However, 15.3 per cent said that local employees were spread across all levels in their company, while only 19.7 per cent were certain that there were no locals working within the same company.

In terms of career trajectory, a good 43 per cent of the poll takers claimed locals get promoted a lot faster than others, while 21 per cent believed that to be untrue and stated both locals and non-locals had the same career trajectory, the poll revealed.

However, 36 per cent surprisingly said locals got promoted a lot slower as compared to others in their company.

Amer Zureikat, VP sales of Bayt.com, said, “Localisation is a topic of much urgency in discourse currently in HR circles around the GCC, and we are pleased to have made great inroads with this survey in understanding the patterns and issues related to talent localisation and proud to provide the most effective and sophisticated channel for talent localisation activity in the GCC today across all industries, career levels and job roles.”

The online poll series partakers were then asked about the ways in which their company recruited local employees.

Most respondents (41 per cent) said recruitment was usually carried out online; 15.6 per cent stated newspapers; 21.3 per cent claimed it was done via traditional head-hunters; and only 1.6 per cent said through universities.

When asked what career level local talent is most in demand for in their company today, 36.5 per cent said intermediate level; 25.8 per cent stated senior level; 24.6 per cent claimed entry level; 5.2 per cent were not sure and 7.9 per cent felt that local employees get hired evenly across all levels.

'The results show that there is a high demand for local employees in the region; and while some companies maintain they still have a hard time finding local talent, the majority manages to recruit local talent online,' he added

The data for the poll series was collected online between July 29 to September 27 from a total of 2,294 participants in the GCC countries.-TradeArabia News Service