A potential brain drain is hitting the UAE as hordes of its highly skilled professionals are reported to be flocking to greener pastures in neighbouring GCC countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Many people are believed to be considering offers during the summer, having been promised better career prospects.
Recruitment professionals and human resource managers say thousands of people are trickling out of the emirate due to stagnant salaries, made worse by spiralling living expenses.
The new wave of labour migration has gained momentum in the past one-and-a-half years with booming economies such as Qatar looking at Dubai as a potential job outsourcing market.
Ranjeev Menon, deputy country manager at PWC Logistics in Qatar, told Emirates Today that he had recruited more than 10 peo ple from Dubai in the past three months to fill in vacancies in the logistics sector.
"We are forced to look for people outside Qatar because of the non-availability of skilled labour. I can say that Qatar is still a premature market while Dubai is a logistics hub where one can find the best talent in the region," he said.
Ranjeev added that he himself decided to move out of Dubai two years ago because career progression was getting stagnant here whereas Qatar offered prospects of immediate growth.
Bernie Luby, the communications manager at Clarendon Parker Middle East, noted: "It does not surprise me that companies outside the UAE are recruiting from Dubai as it is a more mature market with a lot of competitive talent. Moreover, there is a wealth of highly-skilled professionals who are exposed to work challenges." Saloni Arora, a business development executive at Soundline Recruitment, said people are moving out of Dubai as growth prospects are bleak in the wake of cutthroat competition.
"The market is more or less getting saturated here in Dubai, and the opportunities to grow are not very promising. Meanwhile, countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia are throwing open vast opportunities in various sectors promising professionals better packages," said Arora.
On the need for local companies to retain talented employees, many like Asharaf El Jammal, the director of finance at Sheraton Jumeirah Beach Resort and Towers, remarked that employers need to review pay scales of their staff as living in Dubai was getting more expensive, forcing people to look for options elsewhere.
However, he brushed aside the idea that the brain drain can affect Dubai's hospitality industry adversely and said that countries such as Qatar were still far behind Dubai's pace of development.
By Anjana San
© Emirates Today 2006
