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Healthcare hiring on the rise in UAE

Region-wise, the banking and finance sector continues to lead the growth momentum.

Dubai: The UAE’s healthcare sector is on a hiring spree, with online job postings up by 21 per cent from 2014 and 11 per cent from April 2015, according to the Monster Employment Index.

“Online recruitment in the Middle East continues to grow steadily, with an increase of 27 per cent in May 2015, as compared to the same period last year. However, growth momentum has slowed down, with a one percentage point decrease in May, compared to last month,”said Sanjay Modi, managing director of Monster.com for India, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.

“Region-wise, the banking and finance sector continues to lead the growth momentum, with an annual increase of 57 per cent, closely followed by the hospitality sector with an annual increase of 51 per cent. On the back of the low oil prices, hiring has been consistently declining for the production/manufacturing, automotive and ancillary and oil and gas sectors.”

“In the UAE we are seeing a positive trend for the healthcare sector, where online hiring demand has increased by 21 per cent from 2014. We attribute the growth in online hiring to positive developments in the healthcare sector, such as the upcoming launch of the unified national health base, which would make the UAE the first country in the region to have a unified national health database. However, to keep up with these developments, and with government’s plans for the UAE sector, hiring is expected to increase. According to a recent survey published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the number of healthcare workers needs to rise by 50 per cent over the next six years to meet government targets,” he added.

“In contrast to overall demand for jobs in the healthcare sector, online demand for healthcare specialists has gone down by five per cent year-on-year. We believe the decline in demand for specialists indicates the healthcare sector is looking to hire for a variety of occupations, such as IT specialists, marketing and communications experts or accountants.” continued Modi.

“Among the countries monitored, Egypt and Saudi Arabia took the lead with a 33 per cent and 32 per cent annual increase in online job listings, while Kuwait is the only country in the region showing a negative growth in online hiring demand, with a one per cent annual decrease as compared to May 2014.”

Job searches up in Ramadan

Meanwhile, the “Ramadan in the Middle East and North Africa Workplace” poll, recently conducted by Bayt.com, has revealed that almost 95 per cent of respondents in the Middle East and North Africa respect the spirit of the holy month of Ramadan, regardless of their religion.

During Ramadan as well, absenteeism in the workplace increases according to 58.8 per cent of respondents, while 41.2 per cent believe the opposite is true. In addition, 77.6 per cent of Mena respondents believe that employees are less productive during Ramadan, with 35.9 per cent believing it to a large extent. However, more than two out of 10 people surveyed say that employee productivity remains unchanged during this time.

Interestingly, almost half of those polled believe that job search activities among employees increase during Ramadan, and 16 per cent also believe that hiring in their company increases as well. However, more than four out of 10 respondents believe that hiring doesn’t increase at all, or that hiring practices don’t change at all during this period.

“During Ramadan, the Mena workplace changes quite substantially... it is important for employers, employees and job seekers to have a clear view of what to expect during this time. Another trend we noticed is that almost half the people polled say that job search activities increase during this time,” said Suhail Masri, vice-president of sales at Bayt.com.

alvin@khaleejtimes.com