Online job demand in the Middle East continues to show a positive sequential expansion with strong hiring trends in most industry sectors like retail/trade and logistics; education and healthcare, said an expert.

“Major economies like KSA, UAE and Kuwait are exhibiting robust double digit annual growth,” added Sanjay Modi, managing director, Monster.com (India/Middle East/South East Asia), in the latest Monster Employment Index Middle East.

Industry year-over-year trends

Online opportunities exceeded December’10 level in 11 of 12 industry sectors monitored by the index.

BFSI (Banking, Financial Services & Insurance), up 55 per cent, was the fastest moving sector by the way of longer-term growth as employers continued to hire the third consecutive month.

Education (up 50 per cent) and healthcare (up 47 per cent) continued to remain amidst the top growth sectors in December, while retail/trade and logistics (up 33 per cent) sector emerged from steady October levels and edged up six points between November and December.

Production/manufacturing, automotive and ancillary (up 16 per cent) exhibited reasonably improved hiring trends over December’10, said the report.

Annual growth momentum in oil and gas (down 9 per cent) headed further downward as online opportunities slipped seven per cent below November.

Top growth industries

Nine of the 11 occupation groups experienced improved online demand over the year.

HR & Administration (up 63 per cent) professionals witnessed fastest growth in demand between December’10 and December’11, while demand for sales and BD (up 59 per cent) rebounded following low levels witnessed in November. The group ranked second from the top in annual growth.

Customer service (down 15 per cent) saw the steepest year-over-year as well as monthly decline among occupations tracked by the index.

Country-wise growth

Online opportunities exceeded December’10 level in five of the seven countries monitored by the index.

Saudi Arabia (up 56 per cent) maintained its position charting the most significant annual growth among countries.

Bahrain (up 13 per cent) registered its first positive month-on-month growth since July’11 and Oman (down 12 per cent) recorded the most notable drop in online recruitment activity between December’10 and December’11.

UAE showed a robust year-over-year growth at 36 per cent. Online recruitment activity in the UAE edged up 4 per cent between November and December.

Education topped the annual growth chart while engineering, construction and real estate lead all sectors in month-on-month growth.

Healthcare continued to be the leading annual gainer among occupational groups.

The Monster Employment Index is a monthly gauge of online job demand in Middle-East based on a real-time review of tens of thousands of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of career Web sites and online job listings.

The index does not reflect the trend of any one advertiser or source, but is an aggregate measure of the change in job listings across the industry. – TradeArabia News Service