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Beating a Path to Our Door
By Safura Rahimi on Friday, October 17, 2008Recruitment experts in the UAE and across the region say their postbags and in-trays are bulging with CVs sent by job-seekers wanting to flee the financial turmoil in the West.
Thousands of positions are being axed by banks in the US and Europe as the credit crunch continues to rock the financial sector. And many former Wall Street and City of London high-fliers are looking towards the Middle East as they try to salvage their careers.
Western banking professionals have been moving to the UAE and other GCC countries in growing numbers in recent years as the region's markets and financial centres have opened up.
But interest in the region has reached new heights as a result of the global financial crisis – leading to a gold-rush for credit crunch hoppers. "There has been interest in the region in the last three to four years because of Saudi Arabia opening up its market to international financial institutions and Dubai and Qatar opening up their international financial centres," said Magdy El Zein, Managing Director of banking executive search firm Boyden Middle East.
"Now as a result of financial job cuts in the West there will be more interest from candidates who are looking at moving to the Middle East. The perception now is that the region is a booming market and there is a lot of development still going on.
"This is a new region that's still getting into more developments. It's an exciting time with more opportunities and more challenges, and it offers a chance to start afresh."
Those made redundant by ailing banking giants in the US are particularly in demand. Global consultancy and management firm Grafdom said banking and insurance clients were seeking to hire dozens of ex-employees of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG.
Demand for the company's recruitment outsourcing services has increased three-fold in 2008 with the greatest need coming from the finance, construction and hospitality sectors, said a spokesman.
Grafdom works with many banks and insurance firms in the Middle East including companies in the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. It is receiving hundreds of CVs on a weekly basis from ex-Wall Street employees seeking opportunities in the Gulf.
A source close to Grafdom told Emirates Business: "There is a greater flow of prospective employees and increased interest from Wall Street and London in the Middle East banking sector.
"The trend we are seeing here in the region is not necessarily an increase in recruitment but an increasing need for highly-skilled financial professionals.
"Dubai International Financial Centre, Qatar Financial Centre and Bahrain Financial Harbour are all playing key roles in terms of being emerging financial hubs with remarkable opportunities for institutions and finance professionals. In addition the region's cosmopolitan environment and almost non-existent tax are terrific points of attraction."
Global jobs portal eFinancialCareers said the number of people from outside the region who were applying for positions on its Gulf website had increased by 70 per cent over the past six months, although it declined to reveal precise figures.
The number of CVs posted on the site and total job applications in the region rose by 36 per cent in the same period, it said.
"The Gulf is undoubtedly viewed as an attractive place to work for financial professionals, as seen by the fact an increasing number of investment bankers are requesting transfers to the region within international organisations," said Paul Clarke, UK-based Middle East editor of eFinancialCareers.
"What's more, many firms in the Gulf are using the current downturn in Western markets as an opportunity to hire. The influx of people has begun to address the ongoing shortage of talent in the GCC."
However recent financial concerns in the region, such as tightening liquidity, have seen foreign investors pull money out of local stock markets, denting confidence in the Gulf.
And the common Western perception that the Gulf has a limitless supply of jobs that will soak up the vast number of redundant investment bankers in the UK and US is not necessarily true.
One senior London-based recruitment specialist said there were signs that the region was being much more cautious when taking people on than it was this time last year. And El Zein said most international financial institutions that had moved into the region in the last three to four years were becoming more careful too as they faced issues in their own countries in the West.
The Grafdom source said the firm had not experienced any downturn in the recruitment of staff in the finance sector compared with last year. "Every position is hired based directly on the prevailing demand that the company has and there isn't an unlimited number of job opportunities," he said. "What we are experiencing now is a greater demand for finance professionals being sourced directly from Wall Street and with a specialised skill-set. There is a more profound focus on the quality of candidates and their credentials."
Salary Boom
Western professionals fleeing the financial crisis are arriving at a time when salaries in the UAE are increasing faster than those in any other GCC country, according to a study.
Private sector pay in the UAE rose by 13.6 per cent over the last year, online recruitment firm GulfTalent.com said this week. The average increase across the Gulf was 11.4 per cent. A continued shortage of talent across most sectors as well as the spiralling cost of living – particularly residential rents – are driving the salary increases. However the firm warned that the level of pay rises may ease off with the influx of Western expats following the global economic downturn. The report said the upward pressure on pay rises could ease depending on the strength of the US dollar and the severity of the expected downturn in Western markets.
GulfTalent.com surveyed 29,000 professionals in the GCC, including top executives and regional business leaders and human resource managers, between September 15 and 30.
Case Study
Ribu Tharakan, 27, moved from London two weeks ago to take his first step on the job ladder in Dubai. Having worked at Morgan Stanley in New York and JP Morgan in London, as well as consulting on an infrastructure project focusing on India at a private firm during his studies, he says the global financial climate had a bearing on his decision to move to the Emirates.
Before moving, he finished studies in finance at Oxford and Cambridge universities in the UK and has now applied for positions through Hays Recruitment in Dubai. "With places like London and New York, obviously you have this turn of financial events, and particularly within the age of globalisation I think people quickly tend to recognise where new opportunities are coming by," he said.
Copyright ©2008 Emirates Business 24/7
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