A survey conducted among 170 recruiters across the GCC countries forecasts an optimistic employment scenario for the second half of 2010. Over 50% recruiters asserted that the hiring will be robust in 2010, 26% said that replacement hiring will take place, 18% said that there would be no hiring while 6% indicated layoffs. Most recruiters said that more jobs will be created in the 4 to 8 years experience brackets.
We perceive a positive sentiment among the recruiters. Most companies are now looking at replacement hiring. We witnessed that the staff retention improved drastically during the downturn and the economy is under a continued momentum of recovery said Vineet Singh, Business Head, Naukri Gulf.com.
A deeper analysis of the job categories in the survey reflects that the Construction and Oil and Gas sectors indicated growing market optimism. 65% of recruiters in Construction and Engineering and 52% in Oil and Gas sectors said that new jobs will be created in the second half of 2010. A similar survey conducted about a year back showed that 14% of recruiters in the Oil and Gas sector had said that layoffs will continue in the second half of 2009 while in this years survey the recruiters in the same sector indicated no layoffs This clearly indicates a shift in the hiring sentiment of recruiters in those key industry segments in Gulf When questioned about the range of increments given out to employees in the year 2010 then 34% of recruiters said that no increments were given. 30% said that increments were within the range of 5% -10% and 14% said that increments ranged from 10% to 20%. Sectorally, 37% of recruiters in Construction and Engineering sector said that no increments were given out in 2010 and 32% of recruiters in Oil and Gas sector said that increments ranged from 5% to 10%.When queried on whether nationality had any impact on hiring, most of the recruiters said that Nationality has no impact on the hiring.
