Business & Money | Thursday 27 August, 2015 12:54 pm |

The Monster Employment Index is a monthly gauge of online job posting activity in Middle-East based on a real-time review of tens of thousands of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of career Web sites and online job listings. The Index does not reflect the trend of any one advertiser or source, but is an aggregate measure of the change in job listings across the industry.

 

“After a few months of leading the charts in terms of online hiring activity, KSA saw a decrease in momentum and dropped to the fourth place in July 2015. Year on year, we are still seeing a positive increase of 19% in online hiring activity in the Kingdom, but below the UAE (35%), Qatar (23%) and Egypt (20%). We attribute the decrease in growth momentum to the summer period, which is characteristically slow, and the Holy month of Ramadan, followed by Eid Al Fitr. As people embrace and maximize the spiritual goodness of the month, the work load in the Kingdom is limited,” said Sanjay Modi, Managing Director, Monster.com (India, Middle East, South East Asia and Hong Kong).

“As shown by our latest Monster Employment Index for KSA, the creative industry continues to lead the growth charts with a 36% increase in online job demand for the month of July. However, I am not surprised to see IT and Telecom/ISP sector coming in second place with a 34% increase in online job demand. This links well with the top growth occupation for the month – software, hardware and telecoms specialists were the most sought after positions for the second month in a row, with a 60% increase year on year, as compared to the same period last year. 

“The same trend is reflected region – wide, with a 78% year on year increase in demand for software hardware and telecom professionals. According to Gartner Governments, the Middle East and North Africa will spend $11.97 billion on IT products and services in 2015.

“Relying more on the internet and benefiting from the quick and easy process of online job posting is shifting the way companies used to approach candidates in the past. Saudi Arabia is looking to recruit talented professionals with niche skills to drive forward the country’s growth plans in regards to the IT and Telecom / ISP sector,” added Modi.

 

Geographic Year-over-year Trends: Online hiring surpassed the year-ago level in six of the seven countries monitored by the Index.   

 

UAE registered a 35 percent growth to lead all monitored countries year-on-year. The growth momentum paced up by 18 percentage points between June and July 2015. The country also recorded the steepest month-on-month growth. At 16 percent, the month-on increase is the highest since May 2014.

 

KSA registered a 19 percent growth in online hiring activity between July 2014 and 2015. KSA has been registering steep growth since February 2015. The year-on-year growth rate even though robust is at its lowest recorded this year with a moderation in pace of 13 percentage points between June and July 2014  

 

Online recruitment activity in Kuwait (down eight percent) plummeted once again. The country registered a positive growth following seven successive year-on-year drop since November 2014. The six-month growth is however positive; up by six percent.