UAE job market is slowing down; A few sectors still hiring

Industry Year-over-Year Trends: Online hiring activity exceeded the year-ago level in eight of the 12 monitored industry sectors.

• BFSI (up 31 percent) supplanted IT and Telecom/ISP (up 30 percent) to lead all industry sectors by the way of long-term growth. The year-on-year growth momentum even though lower than that observed in the first two quarters has surpassed that of September 2015 (23 percent). The sector has recorded steep growth on the month (up 14 percent) following low level in Q3 2015. The annual growth momentum has increased for the IT and Telecom/ISP sector as well; up from 28 percent in September.

• Online recruitment activity in Consumer Goods/ FMCG, Food & Packaged Food, Home Appliance, Garments/ Textiles/ Leather, Gems & Jewellery (up four percent) exceeded the year-ago level. This is the first positive growth since June 2015. It is notable that hiring in the sector has been unsteady, mostly negative since August 2012 with Index reading for the series consistently below the baseline starting April 2014.

• Oil and Gas sector has charted negative annual growth since the beginning of the year. A 19 percent drop in opportunities from the year-ago this month is the tenth successive decline of the series.

• Education sector which has been growing in double digits since October 2014 registered a negative year-on growth this month; down 22 percent. This is the steepest decline in the series and also among all industry sectors. Online hiring activity in the sector has been gradually slowing since July 2015.

Occupation Year-over-Year Trends: There is an increased demand in 9 of the 11 occupation groups monitored by the Index.

• HR & Admin. (up 32 percent) registered the steepest growth in demand from the year-ago among all monitored job roles. At the same time there is an increased demand on the month; up by 10 percent following fewer opportunities on the month since June 2015.

• Demand for Health Care professionals continues to rise; up by 28 percent year-on-year from 18 percent in September 2015. It is notable that the group has witnessed a 36 percent growth in opportunities in the past six months between April and October 2015.

• Online demand for Finance and Account (up four percent); Purchase / Logistics / Supply Chain (up three percent); and Software, Hardware, Telecom (up nine percent) continues to trend upward at a much slower pace than in the previous months.

• While Customer Service (up 21 percent) registered a positive growth on the year following negative growth in August and September, demand for Hospitality and Travel (down two percent); and Legal (down eight percent) slipped below the year-ago level. Legal professionals recorded the steepest annual decline among all other.