In Middle East, regardless the type of industry the job market has became so bad. Narrate your experience with your company and your surroundings.

Dear all

Mr. Ashraf has given a vivid picture of the employment situation in Dubai.

 Let us go a deep inside. Low price of oil has further fueled the economic downturn but there are other relevant issues also.

·        War in Yemen

·        War in Syria

·        Sectarian violence in Iraq

·        ISIS factor

·        Sell of oil at low prices through backdoor in some Middle Eastern and North African countries by some unruly groups which have substantive impact to bring the oil prices down. 

 When a country is in war, their productivity and output goes down and consequently, there will no investment and prices of everything will go up.

When someone spends money on purchasing military hardware rather than investment in productive sector, the employment will go down.

 So, this is planned game and who are the main beneficiaries? Think for answer. To conclude this, I remember the economic theory of “Guns and Butter” 

your observation is right the job market is employer oriented as the experienced high paid employees are on stack. 

Ideally we need to pass this 2016 as things will take time to recover there is no liquidity in market, investor is conscious and financial sector has to face a setback by summer.

Its a time of survival of the fittest. the only market segment immune is defense, healthcare and education

Job market also fluctuates when there is ups and downs of economy. As the current trend of economy of middle east is not that encouraging due to the slump in oil prices job vacancy has become less as companies reduce manpower to cope up with the situation. Still there is job vacancies in some categories and as there is large numbers are seeking job due to loss of jobs it is definitely survival of the fittest. 

Thank you for invitation,

Not now, but since Jan.2015 My CEO phoned me and asked me to nominate names from our teams to dismiss them and make a proposal to marge some functions inside organization , this project takes to months and implemented on two levels, we dismissed in level one fifteen employees then we started in level two we dismissed ten employees.out of 135 employees. and now a days they are 60 only.

The decision based on economic situation, affected cash flow by bad political and economical situation.

Losses , were trained and high performance employees , which we spent more time and money to let them as they are. Now a days in MENA, many challenges facing employers and job seekers:

• The Terrorism.
• Economic situation.
• Oil prices.
• Political situation.
• The demand on jobs in jobs market.
• Salaries.

Kuwait as a state in the Gulf Cooperation Council and member of OPEC and certainly is seriously affected by drop in oil prices that's affected manpower market and lead to many circles of workforce layoffs on the large expatriate segment not only in private organizations but also in governmental ones . The rising risk of increase unemployment rate and job loss is expected in coming years if price of oil stay on its current low level.  

Despite, Kuwait is reasonably attractive for commercial businesses due to offering one of the more secure operating environments in the region, along with excellent availability of low cost fuel and basic utilities. However, highly regulated foreign investment policies, poor economic diversity and over-reliance on the hydrocarbons sector mean there are few options for investors in all industries including pharmaceutical sector .

On sum, Oil wealth in Kuwait typically eroded  by cheap oil prices , economic recession and would sharply lead to a fiscal surplus and try to reduce government expenses. A combination of a slowing economy, low oil prices and obstacles in manpower market would continue  to underpin  job seekers dreams and stance towards finding the best possible chance for employment.

I completely agree with Mr. Nuridin Islam Diab  well explained answer. 

In today's current situation, it's very obvious that we're going through an economic downturn which many economic and financial analysts say that it will lead to a global economic depression that will peak at the end of this year / beginning of next year. Oil prices is not the reason of this global recession, although it has contributed greatly to the regional economic slowdown. The main reason why the oil prices went down tremendously over the last year and beginning of this year is not due to supply and demand issues. It' purely a political decision taken by Saudi government to achieve three goals: 1. Cripple the Iranian oil exports after the lifting of sanctions on Iran early this year. 2. Put economic pressure on Russia because of the Russian interference in Syria. 3. Threaten the Shale oil production industry in the Western US and Canada which has contributed over the last few years to the relative shrinking of the Saudi share of the oil exports. 

So, the falling oil prices have played a role, but it's more than that. One of the main reasons why the global economy is on the verge of collapsing is the quantitative easing strategies the US government has been pursuing by having the FED print 4.3 trillion dollars since the economic recession of 2008 till today. All this money printed and not backed by any gold will result in a huge chaos in terms of: Deflation followed by hyper inflation followed by major economic depression (we're talking about something like 1929-1933 depression) which will cause a collapse in the stock market followed by economic chaos. 

Why the picture is so gloomy? It's nature that every 80-85 years or so, we have a major economic depression and every 8 years we have a minor economic recession. Those are called economic cycles. There are two other economic cycles: 17-18 years one and a 40 year one. All those four cycles will coincide on the end of this year (2016) which will be around the American election time. 

What can we do about all that? I say there is hope for us if we know this before hand and we prepare well for those coming tough years. Here's what I suggest we do:

1. Pay off all your loans and credit cards as soon as possible - Debt instruments will really tie you down during an economic depression

2. Don't leave huge amounts of cash in banks. In case of economic depressions there's something called "Run on the Bank" which means all people want to withdraw their money at the same time from banks and banks can't do that so they close down. 

3. Invest in tangible assets - Especially farm land, cultivation, water production, mining

4. Stay away from EFTS and the stock market in general

5. Liquidate any long term positions in the capital market.

6. Find multiple sources of income through utilizing your skills, knowledge, network of people

7. Invest in running small businesses especially in the food, furniture, clothing and cash-services. This investment can be done through taking partnerships / owning equity in already existing small companies in these sectors so that they can expand their operations and you can benefit from the return on your equity with them. 

8. Don't buy real estate now. Prices are at a high now and will go down tremendously after the crash. 

9. Have part of your portfolio in precious metals (gold and silver) - If you take a conservative stand then at least 5% of your portfolio should be in precious metals (bars and coins not actual jewelry). Another more lenient approach is to have 15-20% of your portfolio in Gold and Silver. I personally agree with Ray Dalio who suggests 7.5% of your portfolio to be in gold and silver. 

10. Try to move away from big cities or at least have another safe place to go to in the country side

Those are some advises I personally give in order to be prepared. There are much more we can do now to prepare ourselves. I might be sharing more of that later with another question. 

After a decade of record high oil prices, pundits could be forgiven for dismissing the initial oil price decline in late 2014 as a temporary market correction. Yet the dramatic collapse in the price of crude oil, from over 100 to less than 30 dollars per barrel, has turned out to be far deeper and more durable than anyone could foresee. This has cast a dark shadow over the oil-dependent economies of the Gulf throughout 2015 and is threatening more disruption in 2016

Faced with severe budget deficits, governments have cut state subsidies as well as spending on non-essential projects, leading to a slowdown in the private sector

Pay rises have become more modest, easing from an average of 6.7 percent in 2014 to 5.7 percent in 2015 and forecast at just 5.2 percent in 2016 , Companies are now demanding multi-taskers. They are merging job roles and looking

for candidates with diverse skills and experience

Thanks for invitation

but at our region different because Jordan identified as oil consumption country & import it, low price refreshing some of activities & industries

The reason is deadly on the Middle East oil-producing countries, especially the competition because it only imported and do not have a strong economy, but any unilateral depends on oil and the collapse of oil prices collapsing markets of these countries and their economies and wandering decisions to compensate for the deficit in their budgets

Majority of OPEC's production comes from state-owned monopolies that only know and use "conventional" techniques – many of which have been around since the turn of the 20th century.

Their antiquated conventional technology can only extract the "cream" of the oil off the top, leaving vast amounts of their resources virtually inaccessible to them. So, after cherry-picking the best oil for almost a century, the wells are showing signs of running dry.

Needless to say, this has OPEC scared to death. They have become dependent on petroleum to maintain their exuberant lifestyles and national economies. When the oil slows down, so does their opulent living. And they certainly don't want that.

So now they're turning to the rest of the world for a solution. And they're willing to pay anything to get it.

Instead of OPEC budget deficits or the whims of Arab dictators... new technology is going to be the key that will finally unlock the vault of Middle East oil riches for you and me.

But this is a tricky situation.

There are only a handful of companies in the world that possess the precise mix of proven, world-leading technology; experienced management; and most importantly, recognition and respect of the Middle Eastern state companies, that will be required to pull this off.

These small, little-known companies will be the first to fill up at the watering hole of profits.