Construction jobs could be resurgent in the coming quarter.
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The increased construction activity in the UAE has led to a jump in jobs in the construction industry, a survey released by naukrigulf.com has found.
According to the results of the survey, more approximately 58% of recruiters in the GCC predict that new jobs will increase in the coming quarter. These recruiters are optimistic about the overall recruitment scenario, and say that the majority of demand will be for the eight to fifteen year experience level.
Trevor Murphy, managing director at Morgan McKinley believes that the construction sector will show marked improvement in 2013 and predicted that construction would pick up in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, an Emirates 24/7 report said.
Toby Simpson, managing director at the Gulf Recruitment Group, said that ‘construction and engineering consultancy had shown growth, although this was largely due to projects outside the UAE.’
However, a minority of recruiters expressed caution and said that they believed that there may be more layoffs in the coming quarter. The naukrifgulf.com survey found that at least 19% of respondents forecast layoffs in the stated period, while 13% predicted that there would be no hiring at least.
“This clearly suggests that the global financial crisis has impact hiring decisions of some companies who prefer to adopt a wait and watch mode,” the findings said.
Furthermore, the widening gap between demand and supply for talented workers has become a major concern for the sector, and those respondents that predicted new jobs warned that a talent crunch while hiring new employees would be something they’d have to deal with.
The results of the survey found that it was most difficult to hire talent with between four and eight years of experience.
“We are happy to see return of positive sentiments in the construction industry. We expect to witness things turning even better in the mid-term. Most of the GCC governments have large development projects in the pipeline and this should help provide the required boost to the construction industry,” said Tarun Aggarwal, business head of naukrigulf.com in the report.
As new jobs open up in the sector, employees can also expect increments, the survey found. Even in 2012 many employees got pay hikes. 54% of the recruiters surveyed said that the range of increments were within the range of 5% and 10%. 18% of recruiters said that they had got less than 5% increments.