Employers toughen up as job pool stays stagnant

Some construction sectors, such as infrastructure works, appear to be showing some resilience.

Applicants will have to up their game as recruitment firms say the number of available construction jobs shows no sign of increasing.

Speaking to Construction Week, recruitment companies said that clients are strictly opting for quality over quantity when it comes to both employees and skill sets.

“The number of jobs has definitely not increased over the past few months,” said Michael Page Middle East director Dave Storey. “There is a terrific notion that all our clients in the market are truly looking for the most relevant specialist skills available in the global marketplace, with personal career achievements backing this point up, versus a fast-paced quantity focus.”

Duneden managing partner Davina Cooper also said that clients are looking for very specific people as opposed to a large number of employees.

“Construction recruitment will always be strong in the Middle East, however the majority of our clients appear to be restructuring their organisations to adapt to the current market conditions,” she added.

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“It is much more of an employer’s market right now.”

Over the past six months, potential employees have applied in their thousands with one company saying it received 120,000 applications for approximately 300 jobs – around 200 applicants per job.

However, in line with the decreasing number of available jobs, many applicants have had to go away empty handed.

“We have placed numerous applicants into jobs this year,” said Cooper. “However, this was less than the amount we placed for the same quarter last year.”

Carmichael Fisher construction and development director Matt Potts also said that the number of of approaches being made by prospective job seekers to the firm has lessened.

“This is due to many of the individuals, unfortunately having been made redundant in the recent months, having now found alternative employment either within the Middle East or further afield,” he said.

Although the construction sector has stalled somewhat since the crisis, there is a shared opinion that industry recruitment remains stable and will get better in time.

“We have been fortunate that many of our existing and new clients have used the recent downturn in economy as an opportunity to add to their leadership teams, meaning that we have been able to maintain a sustainable workload,” added Potts.

“Compared to our neighbours in other global markets, the Middle East has stayed in a positive growth phase,” agreed Storey. “We believe there will be an encouraging uplift in the marketplace by the end of 2009, with strong personnel demand from more mature global markets where completion on projects is paramount.”

The construction firms also said that most roles have been recently related to infrastructure projects.

“There has been strong resilience and demand on key projects such as airport development, infrastructure works and some major investment projects in Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi,” said Storey.

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