Seventy-four per cent of UAE companies claim they will either ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ be hiring in a year’s time, suggesting long-term growth and a positive outlook for the country’s economy, a report said.

Meanwhile, 66 per cent of UAE firms have hired new employees in the last six months, noted the latest Middle East Job Index Survey released by Bayt.com, the leading jobs portal in the Middle East.

Twenty-one per cent of companies will look to fill between 6-10 positions, most of which will be for junior executive roles (36 per cent).

When it comes to fields that require employees currently, UAE respondents believe that the industries which are most attractive are construction (39 per cent) and banking and finance (39 per cent), followed by oil, gas and petrochemicals (35 per cent).

More specifically, in the next 3 months UAE companies will seek sales managers (19 per cent), customer service representatives (15 per cent), human resources professionals (14 per cent), project managers (14 per cent), and executive assistants (14 per cent).

In the UAE, the most desirable qualification is one in engineering (31 per cent), followed by business management (29 per cent), and commerce (21 per cent). As the UAE has developed a gamut of higher education institutions, jobseekers can easily choose to pursue these qualifications.

The UAE has always been a very active market with some of the highest number of job listings in the region. Bayt.com has an average of 4,000 jobs advertised daily on its website in the UAE, besides the fact that thousands of employers  search through CVs using Bayt.com’s smart, intuitive ‘CV Search’, the report said.

Emirati talent in the UAE

Bayt.com has a community of over 160,000 registered Emirati professionals who are looking for a new job or open to better career prospects. The Emirati talent pool on Bayt.com is extremely diverse, extending from entry level to C-Suite talent and senior executives across the entire spectrum of demographic, geographic and industry lines.

The Bayt.com Top Industries in the Mena Survey (December 2013), shows that the majority of Emirati professionals (55 per cent) choose the government as a favourable employer. This is followed by military, defence and police services (35 per cent), oil, gas and petrochemicals (29 per cent), and banking and finance (27 per cent).

The hospitality and tourism and retail industries are on the other hand favoured by 7 per cent and 3 per cent respectively of Emiratis as top industries attracting national talent in the UAE. It is worth mentioning that the hospitality and tourism industry was identified by professionals in the UAE as the second industry that has the longest hours at 26 per cent, right after construction (32 per cent). Hospitality and tourism is also one of the most attractive industries to women in the UAE, at 27 per cent.

When it comes to demand for senior managerial talent and engineering corporate Emaratisation drives, Bayt.com remains uniquely positioned to deliver targeted solutions that leverage the jobsite’s first comer advantage and 14-year track record serving local organisations.

“At Bayt.com we have been assisting corporations in the GCC large and small, both local and international, to meet their nationalization targets for the better part of the last decade,” said Suhail Masri, VP of Sales, Bayt.com.

“Most of the region's top employers whom we liaise with on a daily basis are already actively mobilized to source, attract and retain national talent across career levels and job roles and this initiative should serve in effect to give their nationalization targets and activities extra impetus, momentum, direction and drive.

“In the GCC in particular, Bayt.com's online recruitment platform has facilitated the entire process of meeting nationalization objectives and targets pan-industrially by making it faster, easier and more efficient to source top national talent across career levels. We liaise very closely with each country's universities and top employers alike to ensure our recruitment platform readily accommodates local recruitment targets from the internship and fresh graduate stage through to mid-management and senior managerial level roles and requirements.”

The UAE: a very popular place to live

The Bayt.com “Best Cities in Mena” survey (July 2012) asked respondents which city in the region is the best city to live in their opinion, Dubai and Abu Dhabi came first and second.

Highlights of the survey:

•    Cities in the UAE are believed to have the most effective law enforcement

•    Dubai offers the highest quality of life (73 per cent) followed by Abu Dhabi (70 per cent)

•    Would-be entrepreneurs of Sharjah (43 per cent) and Dubai (40 per cent) rate their cities highly in terms of ‘ease of starting up new businesses’

•    Dubai is most receptive in terms of new ideas innovation (56 per cent)

•    Pedestrian walkways/footpaths are provided for most in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah

•    Entertainment venues are most plentiful in Dubai (85 per cent) followed by Abu Dhabi (73 per cent)

•    Dubai and Abu Dhabi claim the top two spots for good/excellent availability of public utilities (84 per cent and 82 per cent respectively) as well as for good/excellent accessibility of their public transportation systems (77 per cent for Dubai and 70 per cent for Abu Dhabi)

•    Dubai and Abu Dhabi are both tied in terms of cleanest roads and streets in the MENA (91 per cent each) – TradeArabia News Service