The GCC hiring market for 2017 looks positive with more job offers and a general uplift in demand for candidates across all industry sectors in the region when compared to 2016, said a report.

This optimism follows a challenging year for the job market in 2016, as the tightening of company budgets in response to weak energy prices saw a decrease in spending on resource, stated Hays, a leading global professional recruiting group, in its report.

This year is poised to be a busier one than 2016 for hiring in the GCC, according to "Hays 2017 GCC Salary & Employment Report" which was compiled from a survey of over 2,700 GCC working professionals.

In a major boost to the GCC job market, the survey revealed that more than 72 per cent of employers plan to recruit additional staff in the next twelve months compared to the 37 per cent who did so in 2016.

About 37 per cent of employers who took part in the research reported a reduction in headcount within their organisation, which was in contrast to 17 per cent in 2015 and to the 11 per cent who anticipated this when surveyed last year, said the Hays report.

The number of redundancies also doubled year-on-year, with 4 per cent of employees reporting to have lost their job in 2016.

With regards to salary, 9 per cent of employees working in the GCC experienced a pay cut, compared to 2 per cent the prior year and a further 52 per cent of respondents saw no change to their salary.

'Standard annual pay increases across the whole company' are also on the decrease, with only 7 per cent of working professionals experiencing a salary change as a result of this in 2016, according to the report.

"We have certainly noticed companies adopting a more strategic and cost conscious approach to spending on employee remuneration and the hiring of additional headcount," reported Chris Greaves, the managing director of Hays, Gulf Region.

"Workforce salaries are one of the single biggest costs for employers and, given the challenging economic climate of the past twelve months, it is simply not viable to offer company-wide pay rises. Instead, we have seen added focus to be on individual performance related pay, which typically amounts to a lower spend for employers than company-wide pay increases," stated Greaves.

Looking ahead, Hays report predicted that salaries will continue at a relatively flat rate compared to 2016, with the vast majority of employers (82 per cent) expecting pay rates to either remain the same or increase by less than 5 per cent in the next twelve months.

“While this statistic may be viewed with some disappointment from employees, we are confident that the market is on the way up. Cost cutting exercises, such as company restructuring and redundancies, in response to low energy prices have already taken place. Many organisations are operating on minimum staff levels and are in a strong position to hire additional headcount in order to meet their 2017 business objectives,” observed Greaves.

Insight from the survey, along with Hays recent job listings, job offers and candidate registration statistics, has seen a general uplift in demand for candidates across all industry sectors when compared to 2016.

“Generally speaking, activity in the hiring market is looking positive. The GCC continues to be an attractive region for business, which sees ongoing and added investment from new market entrants, particularly SMEs locating themselves in free zones,” said the expert.

“With regards to individual skill sets, bi-lingual candidates who speak both Arabic and English, as well as those with both local and international experience in their respective industries are always highest in demand. It is however, an incredibly competitive market for job seekers and it is critical that candidates are able to demonstrate the value that they can bring to an organisation in order to be considered for a role,” he added.

Greaves said it had witnessed a spurt in demand for certain specific roles. "These include cyber security professionals, who can proactively guard against threats to company property; online payment experts, in order to get the region up to speed with other global economies already invested in this; C-suite executives, to fulfil business objectives; as well as marketing content specialists, to build brand awareness and reputation," he added.-TradeArabia News Service