Demand in healthcare professionals increased by 12 per cent year-on-year in terms of jobs listed online at the portal Monster.com in July. Silvia Razgova / The National
Demand in healthcare professionals increased by 12 per cent year-on-year in terms of jobs listed online at the portal Monster.com in July. Silvia Razgova / The National

Business

Healthcare leads UAE jobs market but overall employment listings online down 22%

The healthcare sector is expected to drive the jobs market in the UAE as opportunities dry up in hospitality, oil and gas, and banking industries.

Sananda Sahoo

August 16, 2016

The healthcare sector is expected to drive the jobs market in the UAE as opportunities dry up in the hospitality, oil and gas and banking industries.

Healthcare professionals demand increased by 12 per cent year-on-year in terms of jobs listed online at the portal Monster.com last month, according to the Monster Employment Index.

The overall jobs market declined 22 per cent year-on-year in the number of jobs listed on the portal for the UAE last month.

As crude prices remain below US$50 per barrel, the regional economy is also slowing down.

“Due to economic slowdown and uncertainty, firms are downsizing and restructuring their workforce,” according to an UAE economist. “Cost-to-income ratios have increased recently as incomes declined but cost remained the same, and now they are trying to reduce this ratio.”

Expansion of existing hospitals and construction of new hospitals to tap into the private healthcare market drive recruitment in the sector. At Monster.com, current jobs in the healthcare segment vary from physicians and nurses to sales engineers for healthcare devices and medical transcriptionists.

Among the new hospitals in the pipeline are AsterDM’s largest Medcare-branded hospital expected to open in Sharjah with 150 beds next month, and a 100-bed Aster hospital in the northern emirate next year.

“Amid an uncertain employment landscape in the UAE, healthcare continues to demonstrate strong demand for medical professionals,” said Sanjay Modi, the managing director for Asia Pacific and Middle East at Monster.com.

The consumer goods division reported 25 per cent year-on-year growth in online job posts, followed by manufacturing and automotive, and the engineering and construction sectors at 8 per cent and 6 per cent respectively.

The hospitality sector reported the steepest drop in job opportunities at 38 per cent year-on-year.

The number of hotels under construction in Dubai alone last month increased 16.8 per cent to touch 20,882 rooms across 67 hotels, the second highest in the Middle East after Mecca, according to the analytics com­pany STR. The hotel construction is in anticipation of Expo 2020 in Dubai.

The oil and gas sector meanwhile recorded a fall of 33 per cent, and the banking and fin­ancial service sector fell 22 per cent year-on-year.

Among the hardest hit are accountants and software and hardware professionals, besides customer service personnel.

In the Arabian Gulf, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman reported a year-on-year growth in online recruitment.

ssahoo@thenational.ae

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COMPANY PROFILE

Name: Lamsa

Founder: Badr Ward

Launched: 2014

Employees: 60

Based: Abu Dhabi

Sector: EdTech

Funding to date: $15 million

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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How has net migration to UK changed?

The figure was broadly flat immediately before the Covid-19 pandemic, standing at 216,000 in the year to June 2018 and 224,000 in the year to June 2019.

It then dropped to an estimated 111,000 in the year to June 2020 when restrictions introduced during the pandemic limited travel and movement.

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At a glance

Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.

 

Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year

 

Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month

 

Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30 

 

Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse

 

Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth

 

Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances

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Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a  month before Reaching the Last Mile.

Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.