Top 7 Hiring Trends in the Middle East for 2024

What is the state of recruitment in the Middle East? What hiring trends dominate this part of the globe? Read all about UAE hiring trends in this article.

As businesses worldwide recover from the pandemic, the UAE job market is humming with hiring activity. According to The National News, salaries are expected to increase by an average of 4% to 7& in 2024.

The Khaleej Times mentioned a recent survey by Hays Middle East revealing that approximately 69% of UAE employers are planning to expand their workforce in 2024. This positive hiring outlook is driven by general optimism about the UAE's economic prospects, with 58% of respondents feeling confident about the economic outlook for the year.

So, what does the future hold for the workforce of the UAE? Will automation triumph, or will businesses continue to hire in the same old ways?

What's in store for job seekers and recruiters?

Here are some insights on the hiring trends that Middle East job seekers may find helpful and that HRs and recruiters should look forward to for this year:

1. Enhancing candidate/user experience

Providing a positive candidate experience is no longer optional. Instead, it is a vital necessity with significant repercussions. Organizations who want to improve the candidate experience should:

• Improve employer branding: If organizations plan to bring new talent on board, they need to plan their future course of action wisely, specifically to enhance their employer brand. Research shows that candidates who enjoy the hiring organization's brand or reputation are more inclined to apply. They will apply again if they do not obtain a job offer.
• Communicate effectively: During the hiring process, candidates want to stay well-informed about the recruitment process. Furthermore, mobile recruiting is another way to attract competent candidates.

2. The hybrid work model is here to stay

Over the past two years, the UAE has experienced significant job growth due to rapid economic expansion following the pandemic. This surge in new jobs was complemented by a substantial influx of foreign workers, helping employers meet their workforce needs.

However, The National News reported that:

• About 97% of business leaders in the UAE agree that optimal working arrangements in the future would include some form of remote working. Their views are in line with their peers abroad, as 95% of global executives also envision some form of hybrid working model.
  

• More than 50% of UAE businesses are supporting employees with digital skills training, and 44% of executives are providing work-life balance programs to prepare employees for the future of hybrid working.

3. Accelerating AI-based solutions

With the advent of digital transformation, the talent acquisition paradigm has altered dramatically in the recent decade. 

Advanced HRTech solutions such as resume parser, search & match engine, and taxonomy can help you automate recruitment and save significant time finding the best candidates. 

Resume Parser

The innovative resume parsing technology helps sort and store candidate data without bias. Here’s how it can benefit your organization:

• Enhance the candidate experience by allowing candidates to apply with a single click.
• Easily import millions of resumes overnight.
• Get resume data from emails in less than two seconds.

Search & Match Engine

The advanced search and match allow you to search and match candidates & jobs with great relevancy and accuracy. Search & match engine helps to:

• Enhance the user experience by showing the recommended skills/job titles to the candidate/recruiter while searching.
• Refine your search with facets/filters
• Find a localized candidate with a geographical search

Taxonomy

Taxonomy offers a comprehensive collection of skills, job profiles, and related information. Taxonomy can benefit your organization by:

• Efficiently map with the local govt. databases.
• Enhancing search results by getting keyword recommendations through related skills/jobs. 
• Getting recommended skills and job titles with skills/jobs alias.

4. Data-driven recruitment

You're doing data-driven recruiting when you use facts and figures to support your hiring decisions, from selecting candidates to formulating strategies. HR teams using data are more likely to be efficient than those who do not. How can data-centric hiring help HR teams? Apart from increasing your quality of hire, data-driven recruiting also helps to:

• Wisely allocate budget for various recruiting channels

• Speed up your time-to-hire

• Promote unbiased hiring

• Benchmark and forecast your hiring needs

5. Mobilization of internal talent

Internal talent mobility refers to people moving within an organization to pursue new careers and development prospects. Internal talent mobility is often overlooked in organizations seeking new talent from external sources. 

What advantages can internal talent mobility initiatives offer? Both leaders and employees benefit from a well-designed talent program. It fosters healthy competition, enhances employee retention rates, and reduces recruitment expenses, among other benefits.

6. Diversity and inclusion

Every organization that wants to attract and retain top personnel, enhance the customer experience, and improve financial results must prioritize diversity and inclusion. Many companies boost their diversity and inclusion activities and are better suited to maintain diversity.

According to Forbes, an organization that embraces diversity is 1.7 times more innovative. 

Diversity and inclusion have several benefits, including:

• Recruitment from a larger talent pool
• Encourage innovation in your company's workforce
• It helps make better decisions

7. Employer branding focused on employees

Do you know what entails focusing on employer branding? When done correctly, it paves the way for a great candidate experience. Employer branding focused on what the company is doing to support employees, clients, and communities in times of crisis will garner more candidates than those who do not.

To progress, you'll need leadership-bound employees, and the simplest way to find them is to showcase your company culture and give them an idea about your organization.  The company culture and how its employees are treated can significantly impact the image you're trying to create on potential candidates, from the salary and benefits packages you give to growth chances to weekly happy hours.

Conclusion

The recruitment industry is constantly evolving, and breakthroughs in cloud computing and AI-based solutions such as resume parser, search & match engine, and taxonomy are accelerating the pace of change. Following COVID-19, the world is confronting a new set of realities, with enterprises being disrupted at an alarming rate and having to reinvent themselves in a short period.

Simultaneously, the way we work has evolved dramatically since COVID-19, with remote work and a global workforce, leaving organizations to adapt and implement essential change programs. By implementing innovative HR tech tools, acquiring the necessary talent can be accomplished.