Nearly 7 out of 10 UAE employees – 69 per cent – believe that this is a good year to find a new job as the economy continues to grow and fresh jobs arise in new sectors, an increase of nearly 10 per cent since 2022, according to a new survey’s findings released by Gallup.
Employees in the UAE are significantly more optimistic than their Mena and global peers by 36 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively, according to Gallup’s latest State of the Global Workplace report released on Wednesday.
UAE’s non-oil sectors such as travel and tourism, hospitality, real estate and retail have performed very well in the past three years, surpassing their pre-pandemic levels. This helped establish new companies and also attract players from abroad, creating more job opportunities in the country. This has pushed the population in Dubai – the UAE’s largest emirate in terms of population – to over 3.7 million.
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The UAE employees also believe that they growing better than their regional and global peers in their profession.
The survey found that half of UAE employees – 50 per cent – said that they are thriving, a one-percentage-point increase from last year, which is more than double the rate in the Mena region and 16 per cent higher than the global average.
Therefore, a lesser number of people in the UAE are actively looking for new jobs than their foreign peers.
The survey found that 40 per cent of employees in UAE are looking for or actively seeking a new job, lower than the regional figure of 48 per cent and the even higher rate of 52 per cent of employees globally.
Employee engagement
With 29 per cent of employees engaged at work, workplaces in the UAE remain the most highly engaged in the Mena region, an increase of two points over last year’s report. These rates outpace the global average of 23 per cent and are well above the average 14 per cent employee engagement rate in the region.
“UAE companies are steadily improving workplace engagement and reducing employee negativity. With UAE’s favourable job market, leaders now have a unique chance to capitalise on this momentum by enhancing employee engagement and wellbeing,” said Andrew Rzepa, leading partner in Gallup’s global analytics division in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Gallup estimated that that low employee engagement costs the global economy $8.9 trillion, or 9 per cent of global GDP.
Mental health
The survey revealed that 52 per cent of workers in the Mena region felt stress a lot the previous day as compared to 33 per cent of UAE employees experiencing stress. While nearly one in four employees – 24 per cent – experienced sadness a lot the previous day in the UAE.
While globally, 41 per cent of employees said they experienced stress the previous year.