700,000 expat workers lost their jobs in the GCC in 2016

A report prepared by the Hayes Group International and published by TradeArabia said that four per cent of expatriate workers lost their jobs in various Arabian Gulf countries last year, amounting to some 700,000 people of the total expat workforce that once stood at 17 million in the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) six country bloc.

The Hayes report attributed the issue to the tightening of corporate budgets in line with the decline in energy prices, which has led to reduced spending on employment and human resources, pointing out that about 37 per cent of employers who participated in the Hayes poll said they had to reduce the number of employees within their organisations by 17 per cent in 2015 and about 11 per cent in 2016.

The poll, which included more than 2,700 people including employers and professionals in the Gulf, indicated that the salaries of 9 per cent of expatriate workers had been slashed in 2016, compared to 2 per cent over the previous year, the Kuwaiti Shahid newspaper reported.

The report also revealed that 52 per cent of the surveyed foreign employees said they did not experience a change in their salaries, negatively or positively, while the annual wage increases in the GCC last year saw a decline, with only 7 per cent of workers having their salaries increased.

According to the report, most of the Gulf companies had adopted an approach that depended on reducing spending on salaries.

The report predicted salaries to remain relatively stable during 2017, with the vast majority of employers, or nearly 82 per cent, expecting salary rates either to remain the same or increase by less than 5 per cent during the current year.

In terms of employment expectations this year, the report said employment in the GCC market would be more favourable than last year, predicting more job offers in various sectors, especially industrial.