54% of MENA firms likely to hire new staff in Q3

More than 50 percent of companies in the MENA region say they were likely to recruit new staff in the next three months, a new survey said on Monday.According to the latest quarterly Bayt.com Jobs Index survey, 26 percent said they would probably be recruiting, while 28 percent said that their organisations would definitely be taking on staff.Only five percent of respondents said they would definitely not be hiring in the next quarter.In the UAE, 53 percent of respondents expect to recruit in the next quarter while six percent said they would definitely not be hiring. Overall, employers in Saudi Arabia and Qatar said they were more likely to hire than others, with 33 percent and 31 percent respectively saying that their organisations would definitely be recruiting in Q3.When respondents were asked how many jobs their companies would fill in the next three months, 45 percent said less than five jobs would be available, while 23 percent said that between 6-10 jobs would be available in the coming quarter. Amer Zureikat, VP sales, Bayt.com, said: "The level of regional hiring activity remains relatively encouraging given the regional economic backdrop. "However it is clear that in some parts of the region companies seem to be favouring a climate of cautious cost-consciousness specifically in terms of HR growth." The Job Index also asked respondents what their hiring expectancy was going to be in a year's time, with 67 percent of the MENA region's organisations expecting to hire in the long term. Job seekers in Saudi Arabia are likely to be the most successful at finding work in a year's time, with 36 percent of the country respondents stating they will definitely be hiring in 12 months' time, compared to 28 percent in the UAE The lowest figures among all of the surveyed countries in terms of propensity to recruit in a year's time were shown in Morocco at 22 percent and Bahrain at 19 percent. When asked how to rate their country of residence as an attractive job market compared to those across the region, respondents in the UAE, followed by Qatar were the most optimistic, the survey showed.Telecommunications was seen as the best sector for job seekers, followed by banking and finance and construction, the poll added.Data for the July 2011 Jobs Index was collected online with 4,560 respondents from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. From / Arabian Business News