Private sector is the future, Emiratis told

Private sector is the future, Emiratis told Sarah Young / 1 May 2013 Emiratis need to move into the private sector as the public sector jobs in the UAE start to diminish. Careers UAE 2013, a three-day recruitment, education and training event exclusively for Emiratis, was opened on Tuesday by Shaikh Majid bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, at the Dubai World Trade Centre. The event aims at pushing more Emiratis into employment, in line with the government’s Emiratisation objective, which states Emiratis should make up at least 15 per cent of the total staff in a private company. According to the UAE Ministry of Labour, currently only about 22,000 Emiratis work in the private sector — 9.7 per cent of the total Emirati workforce of 225,000. Shaikh Majid at the ‘Careers UAE’ exhibition held at the Dubai World Trade Centre on Tuesday. — KT photo by Rahul Gajjar Private international service company Serco stakeholder relations director Adel Al Awadhi said his company employed more than 200 Emiratis. “Many Emiratis did not want to go into low-level skill jobs, but locals did not make up more than 12 per cent of the higher-skilled, university-graduate roles,” he said. “Emiratis still prefer the public sector. But our (UAE) public sector will not have as many jobs available going forward. It won’t be sustainable.” The government was looking to outsource the development and provision of public transport and major infrastructure projects such as rail, he said. Jobs had to be guaranteed for Emiratis, given the public sector would have less jobs to offer in the future. The private sector had to support this by helping to transfer knowledge, skills and best practice to Emiratis, through job shadowing, training and apprenticeship programmes, he said. While Serco invested heavily in their employees’ initial training and development, many of them left after one year because they could get better salaries in the government sector, Al Awadhi said. However, those Emiratis who stayed had a far higher chance of getting to a senior-level position than those who made the switch to government, “where (they’ve) got 200 other Emiratis in front of (them) already”. The senior projects manager at the Private Office of Shaikh Majid bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Fatma Ebrahim Ahmed, said the private sector needed to connect more with universities and colleges. “Dubai is full of private sector companies but not everyone is aware of them. They shouldn’t just wait for UAE nationals to come to their website.” Companies should attend career fairs and promote themselves through tools such as social media. sarah@khaleejtimes.com Taylor Scott International