Less job opportunities for finance, accounting professionals in UAE

“Looking closer at the UAE data for November 2015, online job demand is looking gloomy for Finance and Accounting professionals, with a negative year-on-year growth of -2%. Being the first negative growth recorded since January 2015, these findings indicate the UAE economy faces an additional liquidity crunch amid growing financial turmoil.. Given this climate, we are not surprised to see a decline in job demand for finance and accounting professionals; both global and local lenders such as Standard Chartered, HSBC Middle East and First Gulf Bank have announced job cuts for the region. Risk appetite is as low as market liquidity and financial institutions are adopting cost cutting policies, while reducing exposure to riskier assets and avoiding bad debts,” added Modi.

Monster Employment Index Middle East results for the past 18 months are as follows:

Industry Year-over-Year Trends: Of the 12 monitored industry sectors by the Index eight recorded improved hiring levels between November 2014 and 2015.

• Although IT and Telecom/ISP (up 31 percent) led all industry groups by the way of long-term growth, the growth momentum has not exhibited significant variation. The rate of growth year-on-year has been hovering around the same range since August 2015. The group has, however, registered significant growth in short-term; up by 12 percent (three-month growth rate) between August and November 2015.

• Health Care (up 20 percent) recorded the second highest growth in online hiring among all industry sectors. Retail/Trade and Logistics jumped to the third position with a robust 17 percent growth in online recruitment activity, year-on-year; five percentage points higher than the annual growth rate in October 2015 (12 percent).

• Hospitality industry exhibited a negative annual growth rate of marginal one percent for the first time since February 2014. Both three-month (down 5 percent) and six-month (down 17 percent) growth rates are negative indicating a slowdown in hiring in the recent months. The sector also recorded the steepest decline on a month-on-month basis.

• Online recruitment activity matched the year-ago level in Advertising, Market Research, Public Relations, Media and Entertainment; and Chemicals/ Plastic/ Rubber, Paints, Fertilizer/ Pesticides.
• Oil and Gas sector continues to chart negative growth; records a 20 percent plunge from the year-ago.

Occupation Year-over-Year Trends: Online demand exceeded the year-ago level for seven of the 11 occupation groups monitored by the Index.

• Online demand for Customer Service (up 54 percent) professionals has rebounded. The group led all other job roles charting the steepest growth year-on-year. At the same time the Index reading for the series crossed the baseline for the first time since January 2013. The group has recorded a growth of 46 percent in the past three months between August and November 2015.

• Online demand for Health Care professionals continues to soar. The group recorded the second highest growth in demand year-on-year at 36 percent; an improvement of eight percentage points from 28 percent in October 2015.

• Hospitality and Travel (down three percent) witnessed fewer opportunities on the year for the second month in succession. Online hiring for Finance and Account (down eight percent) and Purchase / Logistics / Supply Chain (down two percent) has also slowed. Finance and Account personnel registered the steepest year-on-year decline among all job roles.