Recruitment is booming in the UAE, with up to 15 per cent more jobs being advertised this year compared with last year.
Job agencies report significant increases in employment opportunities as the local economy is buoyed by the effects of the Arab Spring elsewhere and the local tourism industry.
The employment website Bayt.com reported an 11 per cent rise in the number of positions being advertised in the UAE.
"While the UAE itself has seen great growth this year, it's not in the traditional sectors," said Rabea Ataya, the chief executive of Bayt.com.
"To a large degree, we've seen the UAE be a [beneficiary] of the Arab Spring. People across the region are looking for a safe haven, a place to go on vacation and to spend whatever consumer dollars they have."
The retail and hospitality industries are hiring "quite aggressively", although there are still relatively few opportunities in the construction, property and finance sectors, Mr Ataya said.
"[Employment in] construction, compared to a few years ago, is still at far less healthy rates than it once was. The finance sector has also scaled down starting in 2009 and we haven't seen that sector rebound," he said.
Panos Manolopoulos, the regional vice chairman at the executive search firm Stanton Chase International, said UAE companies had boosted their recruitment efforts in the first three quarters of this year.
"We have also seen an increase ... of around 10 to 15 per cent," said Mr Manolopoulos.
He said the manufacturing, engineering, consumer products and technology sectors were especially strong but said banking and financial services sectors had yet to recover.
David Greenwood, the director of sales and marketing at the recruitment consultancy Mackenzie Jones in Dubai, said he expected the total recruitment market in the UAE to be up this year as a whole.
"It would be 10 per cent for the whole year," he said. "There are a lot of businesses that have been expanded in Dubai because of the Arab Spring."
Companies in the healthcare, education and hospitality sectors are also recruiting more staff this year, Mr Greenwood said.
In the first six months of this year, UAE employers posted about 10,500 jobs on Bayt.com.
Mr Ataya said that was a "statistically accurate" representation of the total jobs market because of the size of the sample. "We are the single largest employment medium in the region," he said.
Jarmo Kotilaine, an independent economist based in Saudi Arabia, agreed an increase of more than 10 per cent was likely.
"All indications suggest that the economic activity has picked up," he said. "Certainly the services area is one that should respond relatively swiftly."
Bayt.com advertises jobs across 12 regional cities, including Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Cairo, Beirut and Riyadh.
"Saudi Arabia has been extremely healthy for us, as has the UAE. The North Africa and Levant markets to us have been far less healthy this year," said Mr Ataya.
"In Saudi Arabia we have seen a great increase in construction jobs, which has not been the case in the UAE."
Mr Ataya said a total of 29,714 jobs were posted on the site in the first six months of this year - a 25 per cent increase on last year.
However, other commentators said a 25 per cent increase was not indicative of the market as a whole.
"From our perspective, we did not see that level of increase in the region," said Mr Manolopoulos. "In the region it's a mixed situation.
"Overall, there has been an increase. There are places where it has consistently grown, like Saudi Arabia. But Qatar for us stayed flat ... Bahrain went down. And it was a very big decrease in North Africa, especially in Egypt."
