UAE is the top jobs draw for most Mena graduates, survey says

Some 43 per cent expect to find work within a year of graduating, joint Oliv and Noon study says

The majority of Mena graduates are looking solely in the UAE for work but would look elsewhere if they were not successful, according to an Oliv and Noon.com survey. Silvia Razgova / The National

The UAE, the second-biggest economy in the Arab world, is the market to find a job for university students from the Middle East and North Africa, according to a new survey.

More than three quarters, or 79 per cent of respondents said they are looking exclusively in the UAE for work, one-third of those said they would wait three months before job-hunting internationally, and 52 per cent stating that they would wait for up to six months to find a job in the emirates before looking elsewhere.

The survey of 300 university students across Mena was conducted by Oliv - formerly InternsME - a Dubai-based online career platform with support from UAE e-commerce platform Noon.com. The study is based on 216 responses over nine days in April and May this year.

“Most students feel positive about their chances of getting a job locally upon graduating – which reflects that unemployment among youth in the UAE is much lower than other parts of the region,” said Jean-Michel Gauthier, chief executive and founder of Oliv.

“However, we cannot ignore the fact that the majority of them are likely to look to other regions to launch their careers if they don’t find roles quickly here.”

Almost half - 43 per cent - of those polled said they were either moderately or very confident they would find employment in Mena within a year of graduating, with 6 per cent reporting a complete lack of confidence in finding work after graduating.

While the majority of the respondents picked the UAE as their choice of place for employment, only 3 per cent said they were looking across Mena overall, while the remainder selected specific markets. Overall, 7 per cent of respondents said they would never look outside the region for employment, according to Oliv and Noon survey.

Unemployment was cited as the second biggest obstacle facing young people in the Middle East, in a separate study by Asda’a BCW last month. More than 45 per cent of respondents to the communications firm’s 11th annual Arab Youth Survey cited unemployment as their top concern, after rising cost of living and ahead of lack of Arab unity and slow economic growth.

The Middle East and North Africa has the highest youth unemployment rate in the world, at around 30 per cent, according to the International Labour Organisation.

In April, Oliv closed its first funding round, raising $2 million, led by the Aloshban and Alnamlah families in Saudi Arabia, as well as UAE businessman Mohammed Al Khoory.