Saudi job vacancies buck usual summer trend

Saudi recruitment firms are seeing increased numbers of vacancies for expatriate executives, bucking the usually quieter summer trend.

Summer in Saudi Arabia is traditionally a quiet time for executive vacancies, but the summer of 2018 is proving to be an exception to the rule. Across the Middle East in general, vacancies for experienced expat professionals increased between the first and second quarters of this year by 27 per cent. Expat professional positions advertised in the finance and accounting, banking and financial services, sales and marketing and legal sectors were up by 13 per cent, and Saudi Arabia saw a 41 per cent growth in jobs advertised.

The most popular sector as regards replies from expat job seekers is the financial and banking sector, with open jobs up by 46 per cent, and legal positions up for grabs saw a massive 72 per cent increase. Year on year, Saudi’s average increase in posted jobs came in at over 100 per cent, with the sales and marketing sector showing an increase in advertised positions of 143 per cent. Accounting and finance came in at 38 per cent, the lowest change, and in the UAE as a whole, the same sectors have seen an increase of 38 per cent.

According to one job placement agency's CEO, this summer has been the busiest on record, even although he doesn’t expect the boom in jobs to continue. He's linking the jobs boom to the high number of expats relocating elsewhere due to the unresolved Qatar problem as well as other developments as regards job security in the long term. Professionals in the jobs market field aren’t exactly expecting an upcoming period of continuous growth, although they’re happy with the increase in the number of jobs available at present. Overall,.it's being seen in the recruitment sector as a probably brief but positive upturn in a ‘world of contradictions’. At the same time, Saudi Arabia’s stumbles towards full Saudization under the direction of the Crown Prince seems to be taking as many steps backwards as there are advances, with predictions of its eventual failure appearing regularly in English language media reports.