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Survey: 98% employees in UAE eye job change this year

More than 98 percent of employees in the UAE are looking for a new job in 2017, according to a latest survey.
Bayt.com’s ‘Career Prospects in the Middle East’ poll suggest that 98.26 percent out of 230 respondents in the UAE, will be looking for new employment in 2017.
The sentiment is shared across the Mena region, where 98 percent of respondents plan on looking for a new job in the new year, Khaleej Times quoted the survey.
“It is evident that job seekers in the UAE are determined and inspired to seek more career opportunities and better professional development strategies,” Suhail Masri, vice-president of employer solutions at Bayt.com, reportedly said.
Overall, the majority of respondents in the Mena region are feeling good about the year ahead. Around 68.2 percent of respondents claim that they have their career goals ready for 2017, the report said.
A total of 88.5 percent said they are likely to achieve their career goals in 2017, with 61.9 percent stating that they are very likely to do so.
Moreover, 95.1 percent feel more prepared and qualified to apply for jobs this year than in 2016.
For those looking for new employment opportunities, 53.2 percent say they will look for career opportunities in 2017 using online job sites and other methods, while 29.8 percent will exclusively use online job sites. Less than one in 10 respondents will use companies’ websites, personal networks or social media for finding jobs, said the news portal.
However, Sanjay Modi, managing director at Monster.com for APAC and the Middle East, reportedly noted that while online hiring activity in the UAE currently remains low, the movement of employees and employee talent gaps would create more opportunities but higher competition for job seekers. This, he noted, would make it important for job seekers to find ways to stand out.
Reflecting on their careers in 2016, 40.9 percent of Mena respondents feel satisfied with their career growth during the past year, and more than half say that they stuck to the career resolutions they made last year, Khaleej Times quoted the report as saying.
Mena professionals also have their goals set high for the year ahead, with nine in 10 saying they’ll have more job responsibilities in 2017, and almost the same amount claiming that they will start taking more initiative at work, the survey said.
When it comes to location preferences, 87.2 percent respondents reportedly said they want to work in the Gulf region in 2017.

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