Over 12,000 regional jobs are posted on Bayt.com today and a very healthy number of active employer search packages mean that recruitment activity by employers with unadvertised positions is also very healthy. The number of professionals registering daily on the MENA’s leading jobsite has also grown tremendously in recent months. Its great news for employers and jobseekers alike as recruitment confidence seems to be lifting and there is an abundance of talent in the market at all career levels pursuing the top jobs from fresh college graduates, to senior executives across industry boundaries and job roles.
In fact an average job advertised on the trilingual Bayt.com jobsite in places like Qatar, Kuwait, KSA and UAE today receives well in excess of 600 applications and Bayt.com’s brand new revamped jobsite has just made it that much easier for professionals to upload their CV in their format of choice and to apply to relevant roles and also made it that much more encouraging and rewarding for employers to hire quickly, easily and effectively through the site.
But what economic backdrop are Bayt.com’s rising job counts playing against? Bayt.com’s March 2012 MENA Consumer Confidence Index Survey revealed that 45% of the region’s respondents have positive expectations regarding the country’s future economy and financial conditions and another 22% feel that it would remain the same. However across the region there is low to moderate satisfaction with current compensation reported by the residents and 34% of respondents also claim low satisfaction with job security.
Moreover a staggering 70% of the region’s respondents in the same survey also claim that their salaries are not keeping pace with the cost of living. Interestingly, an online survey conducted by Bayt.com, the Middle East’s number one jobsite, in partnership with the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law as well as research and consulting organisation YouGov, has revealed that while the Arab Spring had an immediate negative impact on the economy in the MENA region, its effect has been positive in driving higher interest in both economic and social development.
The majority of survey respondents state that the Arab Spring has resulted in deteriorating employment conditions. Personal economic situations are also perceived to be negatively affected by the Arab Spring. The negative economic impact of the Arab Spring is felt across all age groups and economic levels. Yet, even with this disparity, the survey shows that professionals are no longer looking at the government as the main provider of employment opportunities.
In most countries, roughly two-thirds of respondents express interest in the private sector and there is widespread interest in business ownership; in every country surveyed a large proportion of respondents said that if given the choice they would prefer to be self-employed or own a business. In fact about 40% of respondents expressed interest in being self-employed.
As far as the reasons are concerned, 50% of respondents said that they started a business because they wanted greater independence, 27% said it was because they could not find a job at that time and 20% said because of higher income. However in order for entrepreneurs and small businesses take on an increasingly active and sustainable role in the regional job creation equation, key barriers preventing professionals from starting their own business need to be addressed head-on.
As per the same survey the impediments that professionals most agreed on were: lack of financing, inability to self-finance, and fear of failure. Other reasons stated by the respondents include economic uncertainty, the lack of entrepreneurial skills, and strict government regulations.
