Career Transitions Due to Corona Pandemic

Career Transitions Due to Corona Pandemic 

According to the latest results published by the Middle East online recruitment company, due to the Corona pandemic, the significant drop in recruitment activity has forced many  professionals to change jobs.  The study compared trends in interview invitations that job seekers received on the leading recruiter during the nine month period from  March to November 2020 against the same period of the previous year.  for some market segments It found that the average number of interview invitations per active jobseeker fell by almost half of previous year.

 

Winners and losers

The drop in hiring was most severe for education and restaurant areas, seeing their interview invitations drop by half and a third respectively. Most other professions saw a moderate drop in demand-including engineers and lawyers, followed by marketing, IT, finance and human resources.

Meanwhile, a handful of professions saw an increase in labor demand during the pandemic-especially medical staff enjoying a twenty percent increase in demand, followed by logistics specialists at ten percent, thanks to the rapid growth of online shopping. Sales professionals experienced a mixed impact , with remote sales workers seeing an increase in demand due to travel restrictions and meetings in direct offices.

The largest decline in employment activity was in education, aviation and hospitality among the sectors of the economy. Trains only increased recruitment activity compared to the same period last year and healthcare and logistics.

In terms of location, professionals stationed locally within the Gulf suffered less impact than the pandemic. Declined invitations to conduct interviews for candidates resident in the Gulf, especially in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates increased by three percent and fourteen percent respectively, while the experienced invitations for interviews in Qatar increased seventeen percent, where employers are able to fill vacancies with talent newly imported.

 

Professionals from Indian Sub-Continent

In contrast, India and Pakistan-based candidates seeking opportunities in the Gulf saw a drop in demand of forty-six percent and forty percent respectively, as flight cancellations and border closures brought international recruitment to a standstill. A similar slowdown in employment was seen from Egypt and Lebanon, two Arab states that form a common basis for hiring Gulf employers.

The epidemic also led to a significant reduction in salaries, as the supply and demand balance shifted in favor of employers. The analysis of vacancies published in Bayt and GulfTalent in nine months since the beginning of the epidemic reveals an average decrease of twenty-four percent in salaries advertised, compared to the same period last year. Lower salaries were greater for the professions most affected by the epidemic, such as teaching and catering professionals, while the less affected roles saw a reduction in salaries or not at all.

 

 

Functional Transformations

 The economic pressure caused by the pandemic has led to job losses, wage cuts, salary delays and job stagnation for many expatriates in the Gulf. While many left the region as a result, some sought to retain their residency and profits by switching to alternative jobs within the region.

Many of the cabin crew who lost their jobs turned to real estate brokerage roles. Among teachers facing loss of work or unpaid leave, supervisor and secretarial roles were common destinations. At the same time, many catering specialists who became redundant took up work in customer service roles. The epidemic has also pushed many into self-employment at home or entrepreneurship. Some first-time teachers report teaching students privately from home via online teaching apps, while a small but growing number of people from different backgrounds are creating online stores that sell goods..

 

Conclusion 

Some companies forced their employees to make wage cuts of 30% to 40% and sign new contracts with the promise that they would be bailed out only to make them redundant after two weeks without any immediate warning and effect. They also seem to have a preference for race when it comes to maintaining only certain nationalities.* The market is very fragile. Prices are rising beyond the reach of the average person, as salaries and wages are being curtailed by Covid. One has to be very careful to survive.* The epidemic has restructured the labor market and job specifications, which may adversely affect the performance of some employees who have moved to another job without qualifications and knowledge of the new job. As per study , next move for a professional, specially from looser categories, to move either online business or add skills to survive.