Last week we released the results of our company survey. This was well reported in Emirates Business and on several online news sites. The report was also covered on City 7′s Inside Business program, which can be viewed online here.

The summary of findings was as follows:

Employers in the UAE and GCC are significantly more positive about hiring and the business environment than at this time last year, according to a corporate survey conducted by BAC Middle East. The survey was sent to individuals with significant involvement in or responsibility for the HR and recruitment processes of their organisation. The responses were gathered from over 250 UAE and GCC-based companies from all major sectors, ranging from blue chip multinationals to leading local firms and SMEs. The responses indicated a general sense of cautious optimism and improving employer sentiment.

Attitudes towards the business environment were positive overall. 59% of respondents described themselves as “fairly optimistic” about the year ahead, with 31% and 5% describing themselves as “optimistic” and” “very optimistic” respectively. This is a significant change from last year’s survey in which pessimism was more commonly reported than optimism.

In terms of the outlook for employment, 54% of respondents stated that they expected their organisation to undertake some hiring this year, up from 37% in 2009, while 35% indicated that they will “possibly” engage in recruitment in 2010. Only 11% of respondents ruled out any hiring in the next 12 months: a significant reduction from 27% last year.

The gradual return of employer confidence was also indicated by the 52% of respondents who anticipate an increase in their local staffing levels in the year ahead, up from 36% in early 2009. Only 6% of surveyed companies predicted a reduction in their staffing levels, down from 9% last year. Siobhan O’Reilly, Recruitment Manager at BAC Middle East, commented on these results:

“The general mood amongst employers is much improved from this time a year ago. While firms remain cautious relatively few of them anticipate definite hiring freezes or further redundancies. No-one is getting carried away but there is a sense that the most difficult period is now behind us.”

Despite the more positive sentiment amongst employers, they expect the market to remain heavily client-driven and are even more confident than last year regarding the balance of power in the labour market. Only 23% of those surveyed expect skills shortages in 2010, down from 32% last year; while two-thirds expect the balance to shift even further in favour of employers. As a result, 76% of respondents expect ‘no significant change’ in general salary levels over the coming year, with only 21% anticipating any increases.

“It will be very interesting to see how employers’ perceptions change over the course of 2010,” said Siobhan O’Reilly. “The general expectation seems to be that the market will remain highly client-driven and may even move further in that direction. However, we are starting to see early signs of candidate shortages in some key areas and the return to growth could result in acute skills shortages more rapidly than anticipated. Of those candidates who were made redundant in 2009, a significant number have either already found alternative employment within the region or have made the decision to relocate, thus reducing the pool of locally-available talent. We do not anticipate a return to the candidate-driven market of early 2008 but clients should probably not expect labour market conditions this year to follow the same pattern as 2009.”