Abu Dhabi: Emiratisation plans, which will start at a select 250 private companies in the UAE, was announced on Tuesday by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation.
Saqr Ghobash Saeed Ghobash, Minister of Human Resources and Emiratisation, told a press conference in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday that the ministry has adopted an ambitious plan for emiratisation in the private sector.
“This includes encouraging private companies and institutions to employ Emiratis in various management, administrative and technical positions. They will be given incentives for achieving the set targets,” he said.
Gobash also explained about the companies, which were approached during the last two years and were categorised into three segments — first very cooperative, second not so cooperative and third non-cooperative companies.
The plan comes as part of a pilot project that was kicked off in December 2016, aimed at employing UAE nationals in the private sector, and tackled ways to encourage the private sector on employing more Emirati professionals across the UAE.
Classification
It includes classifying jobseekers to identify their activity status, creating an emiratisation partnership hub to collaborate with the private sector in implementing emiratisation policies, establishing resolutions for quantitative emiratisation in leading positions, specialisations and posts, and creating different work groups across the UAE to employ jobseekers.
Ghobash said, “As many as 9,199 Emiratis are currently registered in the ministry’s database. They include 7,546 women and 1,649 men across the UAE. We have created an online emiratisation portal as an initial phase on December 7, 2016 that included 250 companies.
“We are currently working on targeting all private institutions, as per the approved measures. We want to encourage Emiratis to join the private sector and excel in it; it’s an ambitious domain with a promising career.”
According to the ministry’s database, Sharjah currently ranks first with 2,161 registered job-seeking candidates, followed by Dubai with 1,829 candidates, Ras Al Khaimah 1,472, Abu Dhabi 1,410 candidates, Fujairah 1,131, Ajman 852, and Umm Al Quwain 344 candidates.
Some 44 per cent of the registered candidates hold university degrees, 38 per cent are high school graduates, whereas 18 per cent have no high school certificate.
Emirati job applicants aged between 18 and 60 years and have a good conduct record can create an online account on the ministry’s website and register their details, qualifications, and job interests. After that, they will receive automatic notifications of potential job ads that match their criteria.
Banking sector
Ghobash said a team of government accelerators from the ministry has been assigned in each emirate to cooperate and collaborate with the private sector companies and the jobseekers. “Our goal is to employ 1,000 Emirati jobseekers in the banking, insurance and finance sector within 75 days. We communicated with 166 financial, insurance and banking sector companies, out of which 98 were cooperative and 24 fulfilled the intended goal. We also communicated with 7,637 jobseekers via email, phone, social media networks and media platforms, and 46.7 per cent of the target number were employed in a period of 51 days.
“Now, we are targeting to employ 3,000 Emiratis over a period of two years in the private sector across the country,” he added.
The banking sector is the most attractive for Emirati jobseekers with 20 to 45 per cent Emiratisation level since December last year.
“We want to find suitable job opportunities for nationals across the UAE, and aim to employ 3,000 Emiratis in the banking, insurance and finance industry.
“We’re focusing on the banking sector because so far the results have been positive, and Emiratis find this sector stable, attractive, and has fixed work hours and days,” he said.
Emiratis represent 44.2 per cent of Dubai Islamic Bank employees, 43.3 per cent at Al Mashreq Bank, and 43.1 per cent at National Bank of Umm Al Quwain.
The minister stressed that the banks take all factors into consideration, including the market needs, trends, education and competition.
Farida Al Ali, assistant undersecretary for employment of national human resources, listed the main reasons for Emiratis turning down jobs in the private sector.
“[As many as] 37.7 per cent of jobseekers were not satisfied with the salary, 32.8 per cent refused because of the geographic location; 11 per cent had better job offers; 6.3 per cent said that the work hours and days were not convenient; and 2.75 per cent preferred working part time,” Al Ali said.
She added, “On the other hand, private companies are not accepting Emirati applicants for potential jobs for several reasons — 65.5 per cent said the applicants lacked the necessary language and communication skills; 24.3 per cent did not meet the required qualifications; 6.9 per cent lacked the experience; and 2.4 per cent were over qualified.”
Nasser Al Hameli, undersecretary for emiratisation affairs at the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, said the ministry revamped its electronic portal to link it with the database of the Emirati jobseekers and companies advertising jobs and vacancies.
Al Hameli pointed out that this step will ensure that eligible Emirati jobseekers will be given priority in employment, before pursuing to issue a work permit for non-Emiratis.
11 criteria
Noora Al Marzouqi, assistant undersecretary for development of national human resources at the ministry, said the ministry placed 11 criteria under which priority of employment is granted to Emiratis.
Under the first priority comes the unemployed, non-retired, has no other job, attended work and responded to communication promptly, has previously rejected a job offer or training one time, is available to work for two weeks, has been to job interviews and has not turned down any job offer, has activated his online account and job application within 30 days.
The second priority includes the unemployed, non-retired, has no other job, is available to work for one month, previously rejected a job offer or training twice, attended work and responded to communication at least twice, has previously missed out on job interviews and rejected one job offer and has activated his online account and job application within 31 and 60 days.
The third priority includes someone who works, is retired, has some sort of other work, is available to work for one-and-a-half months, previously rejected a job offer or training more than twice, has not showed up to work and not responded to any communication at least three times, has not been to job interviews and turned down several job opportunities, and has activated his online account and job application between 61 and 90 days.
As many as 27.5 per cent of jobseekers who have been employed were among the first and second priorities.
— The writer is a journalist based in Abu Dhabi
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