21 per cent of MENA staff made redundant, 75 per cent find new jobs within industry, says report
DESPITE 21 percent of Middle East and North African (MENA) hotel staff being made redundant in the last 12 months, more than three quarters have found new jobs within the industry, says a report by Catererglobal.com – one of the world’s top hospitality recruitment websites.
Being launched at Arabian Travel Market 2009 which runs May 5 to 8 at Dubai International Exhibition and Convention Centre the report, which surveyed over 3,500 regional hospitality professionals, reveals how hotels are streamlining department costs to hedge against the next few years’ expected turbulence by increasing job cuts.
However, Catererglobal.com’s sales director, Peter Willis, believes drastic redundancies may prove to have more damaging, long term knock on effects for operators.
“With many properties feeling the credit crunch strain, human resource departments have been forced to severely cut costs in order to balance the books and deliver on their stakeholder or shareholder obligations,” said Willis.
“However, sudden, wide-scale redundancies may lead to future problems, including incurring heavy costs both in terms of time and money to recruit and train new employees when market conditions improve. Although only 39 per cent of pipeline hotel projects are going ahead, there are still 86,000 confirmed hotel rooms forecasted to come online by 2011 in the Gulf region alone, and this figure will undoubtedly create more job opportunities.”
As well as earmarking the geographical sources and demographic breakdowns of the Middle East’s hospitality staff, the 2009 report also underlines how important staff retention will be in the regional industry’s post downturn recovery.