Published on February 21, 2015
UAE’s oil and gas sector is feeling the heat from the record fall in oil prices in recent months. A recent survey recorded that a large number of the 200 firms it polled were expecting to add jobs in 2015. The growing sectors include financial services, retail, tourism and health care; and 91 per cent of those polled are expected to hire new employees.
However, the job market for the oil and gas sector has softened following the oil market crash. The falling oil prices have led to a reduction in revenue, which has in turn brought down the hiring for non-critical posts by around 30 per cent.
The non-critical posts include head office support jobs like human resources and general administration. The market for crucial jobs like onsite health and safety managers, engineers, project managers and drilling operators have become sluggish but by 5 per cent.
The UAE government has stated that the 60 per cent drop in oil prices will not stop them from going ahead with a large number of oil and gas projects aimed at increasing oil production from under 3 million barrels per day to 3.5 million bpd by 2017. The government also plans on improving the country’s ability to be self-sufficient in natural gas.
The country is also expanding its refining capacity. The USD10 billion expansion of Takeer’s plant at Ruwais is expected to boost capacity to over 820,000 bpd. The plant is expected to commence operation in March.
Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Company or Ipic is expected to add a refinery at the Indian Ocean port city of Fujairah, with a capacity of 200,000 bpd.
However, firms in the sector are expected to tighten their belts while facing the free-falling oil prices. A lot of firms have adopted outsourcing in order to reduce costs. Companies are not willing to hire new candidates, while some firms are looking to outsourcing companies to provide staff.
Companies whose onshore concession expired at the end of 2013- the Adco companies, BP, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch/Shell and Total- all had their staff numbers in their contract. BP has its staff levels back to where they were before the concession expired.
The company whose concessions are renewed are expected to expand their operations staff.
