With employment markets shaking at the knees worldwide and oil prices sinking to new lows, the question many highly qualified JobSeekers from outside the Middle East are asking is how amenable are Middle Eastern still today to overseas talent.Bayt.com, the Middle East's #1 job site, recently ran a series of polls for both JobSeekers and Employers to shed light and provide real data on this very important topic.
Asked whether they are willing to hire talent from overseas, 69% of employers responded in the affirmative. Asked what the biggest impediment is t their company hiring overseas talent most employers responded that it was ''availability of CVs from overseas'' at 27.5%, followed closely by ''cultural concerns'' at 25.5% then ''legal issues'' at 19.6%.
Only 7.8% of employers indicated that they had a ''preference for local experience/expertise'' or that ''pay packages'' of overseas talent were an issue. Moreover, asked what percentage of the talent they hire is sourced overseas, 28% of responding employers indicated 60-80% and 27.1% of respondents indicated 80-100%. Only 8.3% ideate they do not source talent overseas and 12.5% indicated they source 20% or less of their talent from outside the region.
Reasons for hiring talent from overseas were varied with the majority (31.8%) indicating ''package/cost concerns' as being their primary motivators, followed by ''better skills'' at 29.5%, ''diversification of talent'' at 18.2% and 'lack of sufficient domestic talent'' at 15.9%. Only 4.5% indicated ''better cultural fit'' as being a prime motive. JobSeekers asked whether they would like to work in a foreign country responded overwhelmingly in the affirmative with 48% indicating ''yes this is definitely an option for me'', 40% responding ''it depends on the job'' and only 12% indicating 'no, this is not an option for me, I want to work in my home country''.
Online recruitment has vastly expedited the mobility of professionals and enabled real-time exchange of information on availability of jobs as well as real-time access to these opportunities. Bayt.com reports that its professional database has grown by over 1 Million Jobseekers this year alone and the ranks of JobSeekers looking to leave home countries to emigrate to the region has grown exponentially in recent months especially amongst the ranks of seasoned professionals.
In a poll of 8,132 JobSeekers run on November 16 2008 the overwhelming majority (35.7%) voted the UAE as their preferred country to work in the ME followed by KSA at 33.9%, Kuwait at 10.7%, Qatar at 9.9% and Bahrain at 3.9% The Levant scored less favourably with only 3.5% selecting Jordan as a preferred work destination and 2.5% selecting Lebanon.
