Job agencies feel Dubai heat

Bangalore's manpower consultancies are facing the heat of the Dubai meltdown with recruitments down by almost 60 per cent

Job agencies feel Dubai heat

Bangalore's manpower consultancies are facing the heat of the Dubai meltdown with recruitments down by almost 60 per cent.

Geetha of Jerry Varghese Consultants said, "There has been no recruitment for Dubai for the past eight to ten months. Compared to a couple of years ago, recruitment has come down sharply and is almost zero. As of now, recruitment is taking place only for other places in the UAE."

Reduced salaries

Echoing the statistics, Saifulla Khan of A G Associates Manpower Consultant said, "Employment opportunities to Dubai have come down very steeply. Earlier we used to send a minimum of ten people to Dubai in a month, which has now come down to three to four. Even the salaries of the employees have been cut by twenty per cent."

Employees in higher positions with hefty salary packages have had to contend with major cuts, leaving them the worst affected. Lower level staffs have not had to face a cut on the same scale.

Glimmer of hope

According to Azgar Ali Sheik, General Manager of Seema Enterprises, there is still some hope. "Though recruitment has gone down, major companies are doing well even in this situation. The construction companies are the ones which are badly affected. Even now we are supplying manpower to some of the major companies in Dubai and have sent seventeen people with another sixteen visas pending," says Sheik.

Parikshith, who is working as an Office Engineer in Wade Adams Company at Dubai said, "I have hardly come across any workers from Karnataka. Most workers are from Andhra Pradesh, Bengal, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

But, most of the clerical staff working in Dubai comes from Kerala."