Hiring plans soften as exposed industries like hospitality, trade eye hiring freezes, pay cuts

UAE hiring plans have cooled sharply heading into 3Q, with employers turning noticeably more cautious amid geopolitical challenges after a strong start to the year, according to the Manpower Group 3Q Employment Outlook Survey (pdf). The survey shows a net employment outlook (NEO) of 17%, down 43 points q-o-q and 31 points y-o-y, with 25% anticipating making cuts and 42% of employers looking to increase headcount.

It’s geopolitics, silly: “Among employers expecting to reduce staff, 49% cite geopolitical challenges as negatively affecting their staffing decision,” compared with 37% who pointed to economic pressures, a spokesperson from ManPower Group tells EnterpriseAM. Expansion confidence has also softened sharply, with the share of employers hiring because of company growth falling to 36% from 54% in 2Q.

It’s not just less hiring — besides the wider hiring freezes, there’s also pay cuts and unpaid leave arrangements across “exposed” industries, the spokesperson says. Those sectors are, unsurprisingly, trade and logistics, which saw the steepest y-o-y decline with outlook falling 71% and remaining negative, and hospitality, which though still positive at +21%, has been “severely impacted relative to its position at the same time last year,” they say, adding that “the departure of tourists and expatriates hit this sector early and hard.”

In context: The war hit at a peak time for the sector, in the final couple of months before the summer lull which usually see tourism traffic increase due to a packed events schedule and good weather.

The construction and real estate, utilities, and professional services sectors also recorded declines in outlook but remained in positive territory amid ongoing megaproject delivery, the spokesperson says.

It’s harder the smaller you are: Among those looking to hire, larger employers were the most confident, with a 35% hiring outlook, while companies with fewer than 10 employees were eyeing expansion with a 29% NEO. Firms with 10-49 employees, however, recorded an outlook of -7%. This suggests smaller businesses are finding it harder to absorb uncertainty than larger corporates, ManPower Group adds.

On the other side of the spectrum, the information sector is still going strong, with a NEO of 31%, in “perhaps the most telling indicator of how UAE employers are reallocating investment and talent priorities under pressure, ManPower Group’s spokesperson says. “The organizations continuing to hire are, broadly, those whose value proposition is digital, knowledge-based, or infrastructure-linked, and whose revenue streams are either insulated from physical supply chain disruption or actively benefiting from accelerated digital adoption,” they explain. “The organisations pulling back are those whose operations depend on physical movement, footfall, or cross-border trade, precisely the activities most directly disrupted by the conflict and its aftermath.” Finance and ins. also held steady on a y-o-y basis.

That’s a trend that’s only been exacerbated, but isn’t entirely new: “UAE employers were progressively moving investment toward capability-intensive functions linked to AI, data, financial services, and healthcare,” we’re told. “The geopolitical shock has accelerated that reallocation rather than reversed it.”

In context

Near the beginning of the regional war, recruitment plans were holding steady as employers saw disruption as contained and temporary, analysts told us. Cooper Fitch’s April Gulf Employment Index contracted 12% in March, the month of peak military activity, before rebounding 13% in April as the ceasefire took hold and projects and hiring pipelines resumed. But experts told us much of the rest of the year’s trajectory would depend on how long the war drags on, with a drawn-out conflict likely to weigh on risk appetite.

Recruiters are also looking increasingly in-country instead of relying on international recruitment as part of a wider reshaping of GCC labor markets. Hiring patterns are diverging across different sectors, with tourism and hospitality being hit the hardest, while real estate continued to post strong growth.