How do you think current Oil and Gas prices are affecting recruitment in the region?

Regionally, we have seen a minor slowdown within recruitment activities, specifically within the Oil and Gas sector.If we look at hiring per country ratio, the recruitment downturn is fairly isolated. Companies are taking a cautious approach to their hiring strategies, headcount numbers are being reduced, but they are still hiring the “right fit” candidates within their organizations. We have been very active in the UAE oil and gas market during Q42015, Q12016 and when looking at the recruitment numbers in hand for hire during Q2/Q32016 the hiring prospects look healthy.  At present, we are focusing on various project support campaigns within the EPC market (predominantly white-collar hires), in addition to supporting the operating companies on their manpower/staffing requirements.Across other sectors, we have had an upturn in hiring support requests and now executing recruitment activities within the infrastructure, banking/finance sector, telecom and IT sectors/or industries.We are also dedicated to the support and delivery to a number of government companies, supporting their hiring campaigns across all levels including Emiratization.

It is s cycle , all the oil and Gaz companies have a large amount of loan to pay to the banks , and now they are facing a tragedic situation because the cost of an empty oil barrel is now at the same price as the oil and gas price. O&G companies will stop sooner or later to pay to the banks, and when this will start , we will start hear in the news bankruptcy banking firms , and when the banks will be out from service ...it means nobody can stay in service , and next the Gold will decrease too and so on . So Now the entrepreneurs THINK they are saving money for the upcoming crucial economy problem and thats why mainly we are facing decreases of opportunities with less salaries .

The answer depends on your reference on Region. If you are talking about EU market it has a positive impact for industry but negative on financial institutes. Same applies to US.

In case of MENA region specially the economies heavily dependent on Petro dollar it has negative impact and mostly HR heads have agreed and FREEZES the new hiring.

As oil & gas price correction has an impact in recruitment, it mean that recruitment was beyond requirement of delivery during high price of o&g -- is not it?

Pricing of natural resources should be at-least the exploration cost & the value addition. If demand & supply is the determinant of price, it is on the suppliers to decide the cut off rate. The buyers are suppose to find no seller beyond saturation. Correction of pricing is a natural process, so is the correction of right resources.

Being fortunate that Allah gave us natural resource, one need to know the efficient exploration & do value addition, instead of looking at the west. It may hire services of human resources but not corporate to make profit on resources for mankind.

I think oil and gas prices affects recruitment process for middle east region. From a long time we observing that the oil and gas prices are slowdowns. We know that if the revenue of company slow down then it directly affects to the employment. Every company thinks about ability to appoint employee first. They will try to continue their additional work with same employee. That's why companies are looking for a candidate who can work more than his skills. Today middle east countries are competing in oil and gas prices and looking to sell their production anyhow. We know that this is only for short time. After sometime everything will be Ok. 

Declining prices of oil and gas in the Market (International Market) greatly affect those countries which are basically producers of oil.  This is widely experienced specifically in the middle east wherein most countries are producing and exporting oil.  Since oil is the major source of income, declining prices would drive most if not all companies to cut costs. As we experience nowadays, most companies are reducing cost by reducing number of employees.  Specially those work that can be done by a single person and yet manage to finish by two or three more persons. Technically price reduction affect the one who is producing oil. In most cases this is the government. In order to recover losses and deficit, the government will cut cost in any possible ways. Projects are being prioritized. Any unnecessary or even the important projects can wait until the source of income will be stabilized. The effect would be mass termination of employees and maximizing the employees capacity (one person can handle two persons work).

     

Actually it depends on a region or a country's economy that what are the key ingredients of a region's economy, only then one can make claims that yes it  has some sort of impacts on a nation's recruitment policy otherwise would seems difficult to make any opinion. If a country's economy is merely based on oil and gas like in case of Gulf Countries which have zero tolerance for such kinds of downturns then it would for sure have terrible consequences for the concerned region in form of jobs reduction, unemployment, poverty up to some extent, expatriation of expatriates and so many similar adversities would be confronted by the concerned territories. But nations like USA, China, UK etc whose economies are not mainly based on oil and gas production would be somehow affected but they can adjust their economies and would cope with the crisis unlike the more concerned nations. 

the fall of oil prices had a negative effect on the middle eastern and global economy. Many oil companies and oilfield services companies laid off many professionals starting late 2015. The training and consulting industry has also been affected by the drop of oil prices and the cutting budgets of the oil companies. My company for example has forced a 10% reduction on all salaries starting next month. If that's not a negative effect I don't know what would be. The picture is expected to keep getting gloomier though. Many economic experts say the downturn will reach a first peak by the end of this year close to the time of the elections in the USA. Then it will free fall from there for another year or so and then things will start to settle down as we reach the bottom of an upcoming economic depression over the next few years.

Is there a way out? Yes and No. Yes for us individually if we'd like to do something about it and move towards entrepreneurship and social business models to survive during those tough times. And No, we can't change the global storm coming, we just need to learn how to navigate through it. 

Unfortunately the unstable political situation in addition to low level fluctuating O&G prices affect to squizing the job market and furthermore to a lot of terminations for cost saving.

oil & gas prices is having a big impact in terms of recruitement, where company's manpower will be affected, especially in oil & gas project sector. Middles East like Saudi Arabia, has a big sector in oil & gas project, which relying in one giant company whcih is ARAMCO. If the oil price will continue to flactuate by going down, cash flows will be the number one biggest problem in how to maintain the company's assets & manpower.

Negatively, i'm afraid. Since the hundreds of jobs were wiped of in upstream and lots of engineers are on the labour markets world wide. So, the downstream sector can fulfill the gaps in missing heads easilly.