Construction is the industry in Dubai that is adding jobs at the quickest rate since January 2018

Dubai: Dubai’s private sector hiring has accelerated dramatically, with the strongest rate of job growth since January 2018. However, the most recent PMI data on Dubai’s businesses in March indicates that there is still an opportunity for further expansion in the employment sector.

Even still, the hiring activity is consistent with what the larger UAE private sector has been doing lately, which has been aided by new orders and calls for expanding the workforce.

After a relatively calm second half of 2022, the construction sector is, as anticipated, the one aggressively hiring. The sector’s success is being driven by new initiatives, particularly off-plan real estate ventures.

According to David Owen, Senior Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, “the increases in staffing levels and inventories of materials and components were the sharpest seen in around five years, allowing firms to increase their output to the greatest extent for six months.”

March saw the biggest increase in activity for Dubai companies since last September as a consequence of a “marked improvement” in customer demand. Although there was a strong increase in new business inflows, the rate of expansion was slightly slower than in February. The travel and tourism industry, which “lost momentum from its post-Covid peaks in 2022,” as well as the wholesale and retail industries, both showed signs of deterioration. Retail sales growth hit a 14-month low in March.

According to the S&P Global study, Dubai businesses cited greater gasoline costs, and contractors must be concerned about rising cement and iron prices as well as rising employee compensation. The research concludes that even then, “the overall increase in business expenses was only modest, however, and remained softer than the long-run trend.”

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