Outlook for construction job pool improves

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The number of available construction jobs is likely to increase this year, Construction Week can reveal.

Construction suppliers, manufacturers and consultancies have said that the job market remained stable last year, but will improve in 2010.

“We will definitely be hiring this year. With the two new acquisitions and more on the way, apart from the organic growth planned we need people to support the expansion of our company,” said Drake and Scull International chief corporate affairs officer Zeina Tabari.

“With our consistent expansion plans, we will be hiring around the same number of people as we did in 2009, if not more.”

DSI will be looking to hire managers and directors in operations and business development in addition to project managers and health and safety managers this year.

Halcrow, a design and engineer consultancy, which specialises in the development of infrastructure, is set to recruit outside the UAE market in 2010.

“We will have more recruitment activity in this year but this will involve a much more global approach and not necessarily a focus on the UAE,” said company HR director Rhyan Anderson.

“Last year was a tough year and we saw changing requirements from our clients. This meant that some additional roles were required, particularly client facing roles which we continued to recruit for.”

For Knauf, an international supplier of building materials, 2009 saw a growth of available positions and the company expects to advertise new jobs this year.

“Fortunately, we saw sufficient growth which prompted us to continue hiring. Since our Ras al Khaimah plant began production in the same year, we hired new staff to support overall operations as well as to strengthen the production team in RAK,” said Knauf marketing manager Kerim Caglar.

“In 2010, we are planning to hire additional staff with the relevant technical background to support the current technical sales support and specification team.”