The UAE’s Job Creation Rate Is At Its Highest Level In Six Years

The employment rate in the UAE increased to its highest in over six years in the previous month of October, as the non-oil private sector picked up at a pace similar to August’s three-year high.  

Sharp expansions in business activity and rising demand across various sectors such as healthcare, software, and information technology were found to be the strong driving factors behind it.

UAE Hiring More Employees!

“The upturn was led by sharp expansions in business activity and new orders, giving further evidence that domestic firms were not only weathering the global economic storms but enjoying strong demand growth,” wrote David Owen, an economist at survey compiler S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Owen added that the businesses responded to the rising backlogs by increasing their employment rate and that firms stocked up on inputs to prepare work schedules to tackle the backlog issue.

The S&P Global UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 56.6 in the month of October (56.1 in September). 

The output subindex also rose from 61.7 in September to 62.8, which is well above the average rate of 57.7 that has been used since 2009. 

However, the employers who responded to the survey were not highly optimistic about the degree of output expected for the next year. The majority of them maintained a moderate degree of optimism as only 14% of firms expected a rise in output for the next year. 

Still, the rising employment rates show how UAE is becoming one of the leaders in the global talent hunt. “The UAE has recorded one of the strongest hiring booms globally, with hiring rates 36 percent higher before 2022,” said Rajai El Khadem, head of LinkedIn Mena. 

The government’s fiscal and monetary measures have played a great part in recovering strongly from the pandemic-induced slowdown expected globally.

According to a survey by the jobs portal Bayt.com, about 76 percent of UAE employers plan to expand their workforce in the current year. 

The booming Industries:

The highest recovery rates in hiring were recorded in sectors such as healthcare, software, and information technology, all of which increased recruitment during the pandemic crisis.

The retail and recreation and travel industries have now grown above the pre-pandemic levels. 

The UAE also witnessed a great talent shift where an increasingly skilled and flexible workforce chose to transition into other jobs in sectors that were booming after the onset of the pandemic. 

Software and IT services attracted the most talent from other sectors followed by corporate services, consumer goods, manufacturing, and finance, according to a LinkedIn report. “Career switching has become more common in the UAE since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Professionals with transferable skills made career transitions out of struggling industries and into sectors that were booming,” said Mr. El Khadem said, head of LinkedIn Mena.

According to El Khadem, Digital content management and self-employment are two examples of job domains that showed three-fold growth in the number of roles. Entrepreneurship, business development, research, media, communications, and marketing job functions also witnessed growth. 

Traditional jobs such as accounting, engineering, operations, purchasing, etc. showed a decline of 10 percent in the region. 

The involvement of women in the workforce has also marked an increase in the UAE in sectors ranging from public administration and healthcare to education, media, communications, and design, etc. 

“Adjusting to hybrid working models in the post-pandemic labour market and offering more flexibility will possibly be a helping factor in attracting and retaining female talent,” stated the LinkedIn report. 

The transition to a green economy has also picked up speed in the UAE with huge investments being made in clean energy sources. The share of jobs in the green economy sectors has also been increasing with roles such as ‘sustainability managers’ and ‘environmental coordinators’ recording a steady rise over the past five years.