Small businesses in Dubai plan to hire for expansion push, survey finds

Small and medium-sized enterprises in Dubai are increasingly looking to hire staff in the next six months to support their expansion.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Dubai are increasingly looking to hire staff in the next six months to support their expansion.

However, they continue to face difficulties in attracting people with the right qualifications, as well as high recruitment costs.

A survey by Meed Events, the organiser of the second annual SMEinfo Awards, found that more than 40 of the UAE’s top 50 SMEs planned to hire more people within the next six months. Half of the respondents that did not plan to take on new staff have hired new employees since the start of the year.

SMEs in the construction, information technology (IT), and project management sectors were the most in need of additional manpower, the survey found.

But more than 60 per cent of the survey’s respondents expressed concern about the cost of recruitment, citing visa expenses as one of the largest challenges.

Other obstacles included the lack of candidates with specialised skills in IT or finance and competition from larger companies, the survey said.

“Recruitment is really a big challenge for SMEs, as they are competing with bigger organisations who can perhaps offer a better compensation package,” said Robert Keay, the managing director of Ethos Consultancy,among the top 25 SMEs in Dubai, according to Dubai SME.

“For SMEs, they need to be more creative in developing an employment package that could include non-financial benefits that prospective candidates may find appealing.”

The SMEinfo awards ceremony, which takes place on November 6 in Dubai, will recognise the country’s top SMEs, entrepreneurs and business leaders in 11 categories.

Last week, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and the Institute of Management Accountants released survey results that found confidence among SMEs in the UAE was running higher than anywhere else in the world.

The survey, however, found that local SMEs faced challenges of declining earnings and rising costs, together with access to financing and prompt payment of invoices.

SMEs account for 92 per cent of all companies operating in the country and make up 86 per cent of the workforce in the private sector, according to the Ministry of Economy.

Nearly 300,000 companies could be classified as part of the SME sector, ministry data showed.