“The effect on salaries has been felt less, with salaries for regulatory professionals being offered at similar levels to 2017,” he suggests.

“But this should be taken as a positive. In other divisions such as operations and finance, for example, salaries being offered are at a lesser amount to previous years – 10-15 per cent in some cases.”

Salary forecasts

Regardless of these negative and positive influences, our participating companies continue to view the Gulf region as an attractive place to work as a whole.

Bayt’s Masri says regional countries continue to score well on several factors including economic, environmental, standard of living, socio-cultural and entrepreneurship in the company’s surveys and Ramsay argues the transformation underway in regional countries makes it an attractive market.

“The Middle East’s overall transformation is an attractive option for career-minded expats, especially in sectors like real estate, construction, infrastructure and banking,” he says.

“In addition, the quality of life remains very high – safety, domestic help, world class schools, healthcare and proximity for global travel are all big advantages.”

The earning potential in the region has also been backed by recent reports including one from property firm Knight Frank, which ranked Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh and Jeddah from 11th to 14th globally for the number of households earning more than $250,000.

But Nadia’s Giulianotti also cautions that the region’s attractiveness should always be considered in the context of workers’ home markets.

This is particularly the case for the region’s largest expat group, Indian nationals, who total some 8.9 million people across the GCC, according to the United Nations’ 2017 International Migration Report.

“For the past two years we’ve seen more Indians going back to India than arriving in the Gulf and what more and more of our customers who do direct recruitment in India are finding is it’s harder to harder to attract good talent,” he says.

“The average pay rise in India last year for middle management was between 12 and 14 per cent and India is booming. So a lot of people are taking the opportunity and weighing up the rising cost of living in the UAE and the better opportunities available in India at the moment.”

This cost of living consideration is expected to be a key factor in the UAE and Saudi Arabia this year as consumers face higher prices for essentials following the introduction of value added tax.

Consumer price inflation in January, the month the tax was implemented, rose from 2.7 per cent to 4.8 per cent in the UAE and to 3 per cent in Saudi, but Giulianotti has lowered expectations for pay rises due to the decreasing cost of rents.

Nadia predicted an average pay rise of 5 per cent in the UAE last year but in reality found it was closer to 2-3 per cent. Following this, Giulianotti now says he has lowered his previous 2018 forecast of a 10 per cent pay rise because the damp rent market in the emirates is acting as a counterweight to other cost of living increases. The firm’s new forecast is an average pay rise of 5-6 per cent this year.

“On one hand we’ve got rents coming down but on the other hand we’ve got

costs going up, so there is a fine balance there,” he suggests.

Michael Page’s Ramsay is a little less optimistic, suggesting the average rise will vary from sector to sector but “will be in the region of 2-3 per cent”.

Masri does not give a forecast but notes that 73.2 per cent of respondents to the firm’s job confidence index expect their salary to get better or stay the same over the next six months, compared to 16.5 per cent who believe it will get worse.

All suggesting that while workers may not get the double-digit pay rise they were hoping for this year, there will at least be an increase in compensation to look forward to.

Contributors

Nadia

One of the Gulf’s leading recruitment consultants for the past 35 years.

DIFC Branch, Liberty House, Suite 911, Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai, UAE.

Tel: Toll Free 8006236

nadia-me.com

Michael Page

Established in the Dubai International Financial Centre in 2006, PageGroup works across the entire region from two main office locations, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Over the last 10 years, PageGroup has developed a strong position within the market resulting in a total headcount of over 50 employees and a management team with more than 100 years of PageGroup experience.

Office No.204, Al Fattan Currency House Tower -1

Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC)

PO Box 506702 Dubai

United Arab Emirates

Tel +971 4 709 0300

michaelpage.ae

Bayt.com

‘The Middle East’s number

one job site.’

Governor Business Tower Floor 23, Office 02, Dubai UAE

Tel. +971 4 449 3100

bayt.com

How we did it

Recruitment firms were asked to fill in their average salaries for each of the positions in the respective Gulf countries. In the instance where they did not have any data they left the box blank. The average of these inputs was then calculated and put together and displayed in the 2018 survey to give a broad insight of compensation across the GCC.

Share This Post