UAE Jobs: Is It Getting Harder to Get Hired?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

This is the Morning Drive, talking recruitment and HR and jobs and more. Months after geopolitical tensions began affecting the region, how has the UAE job market changed? Hiring trends vary across sectors, of course. Some businesses continue to recruit, others are reassessing their workforce needs at the moment. So the question, is it harder to land a job? What's happening to salaries? How are employers approaching recruitment? And more, Nathan Kearney is the Managing Director of Executive Search. Joins us in the studio. Good to meet you.

Nathan Kearney (0:36)

Wonderful to meet you.

SPEAKER_1 (0:38)

Good to have you here. Is it harder to find a job in the UAE today than it was eight months ago?

Nathan Kearney (0:47)

So my company specializes purely in real estate recruitment. So within that realm, it is purely case dependent on who you are and what you're looking for in the circumstances.

So the main thing that I will try and sum and categorize into is the main problem with people right now is they are struggling with the ability to truly show their value during the interview process. Now, if you can master that and you can talk to the interviewer and the hiring manager, then you're going to have no problem. The main problem that people are seeing is their inability to demonstrate what they can bring to the table. Therefore, it is harder than before. So, if people can have that in the back of their mind as they are either looking for a new role or hiring managers or interviewing, then everyone is going to be okay. But before that, it might not happen.

SPEAKER_1 (1:35)

Okay, so it's all about proven track record and all of that stuff at the moment then, yeah?

Nathan Kearney (1:41)

Yeah, well, look, it always has been like that within the real estate industry, but I think everyone can agree that there was a time, especially post-COVID, where essentially, if you drive, if you like houses, then you could get a job within real estate, because it's majority commission only.

SPEAKER_1 (1:59)

Yeah.

Nathan Kearney (2:00)

Now, because people are being wiser hiring, managers are being wiser, smarter, and they have effectively become more efficient, people are now honing in on, look, what is the ROI on you as an employee? What do you bring to the table? Is it wise for me to hire you now than it was previously? So effectively, employees are getting smarter, not just because of tech and the improvements with AI, but it's also having a look at people and see if they are truly cost effective by bringing them into the company.

SPEAKER_1 (2:33)

The thing is this, the companies that you deal with, are they more cautious at the moment, or is there still a feeling that this is basically commission only, we are still in a position to take a chance?

Nathan Kearney (2:47)

They are both, sorry for the politician's answer.

SPEAKER_1 (2:50)

No, no, no, it's fair, if that's the case, then yeah.

Nathan Kearney (2:53)

So every real estate company knows if you are not growing, you are essentially shrinking. Why is that? It is a high turnover environment, everybody knows that. So effectively, yes, people are being wiser, people are being more cautious, however they are still growing.

We always talk about the wonderful positivity in the air within Dubai and the UAE. That is there in the real estate market as well, but people are being more cautious. Again, from three or four back and forth with you already, the one thing we can all agree on is people still want to grow, strategies are still in place, but how they are doing it is in a very different way to what they were doing in, let's say, Q1 2026

SPEAKER_1 (3:36)

Okay. Have you noticed any changes in, I was going to say salary expectations or commission expectations, I suppose, job offers, benefits since the beginning of? Yeah.

Nathan Kearney (3:52)

So maybe let's rewind this to Q1 this year.

But I'm going to give you some context. We don't normally see a market shift within the employment market across all industries for every few years. We are in October 2026 now. This is the third market shift on job vacancies and the volume of candidates applying for new jobs that we've seen already this year. Whereas normally, like I just said, it would be every two to three years. Q1 this year, confidence is there, candidates are there, salaries are high. Q2, Q3, salaries plummet.

Huge number of candidates readily available. Why?

A high number of redundancies, high exits, unfortunately. Some companies, unfortunately, have to close, have to let the people go. Now, I came back to, I was away in the summer, I came back to Dubai, the first, second week of September. We then shifted back to the Q1 structure. So what we've essentially seen is an absolute tidal wave or ripple effect of confidence, no confidence, high salaries, low salaries. So where we are now, just to summarize, is confidence is key. It is there still. But now what we're actually seeing is, because there's a lower volume of candidates readily available, the average salary now within real estate is skyrocketing.