Are salaries in the Middle East keeping up with inflation? According to the January 2008 release of the quarterly Consumer Confidence Index Study conducted by the Middle East''s #1 job site Bayt.com and market research specialists YouGovSiraj, they have emphatically not. 61% of respondents to the extensive survey which spanned both employers and jobseekers in the GCC, North Africa and the Levant indicated that salaries did not keep pace with the cost of living compared to their situation last year. These countries were led by Jordan and Syria where 79% and 70% of respondents indicated that salaries had not kept pace with the cost of living and only 2% and 3% indicated it had. In the GCC, Kuwait led the countries suffering from perceived erosion of real income with 67% of respondents indicating salaries had not kept up with inflation followed by KSA at 65% and Qatar at 56%. The UAE registered the most upside with 11% of UAE residents indicating that their salaries have increased more than the cost of living, 27% indicating salaries have increased commensurate with the cost of living and 51% indicating salaries have not kept pace with increases in the cost of living.
However, despite salaries not keeping pace with inflation according to the Bayt.com YouGovSiraj study, 33% of respondents around the Middle East feel their financial situation has improved since last year with a further 36% reporting it has stayed the same and only 23% claiming their financial situation has gotten worse. Kuwait led in the GCC with 40% of respondents in Kuwait asserting their financial situation has improved since last year, followed by the UAE at 35%, Qatar at 32% and KSA at 28%. Only 19% of respondents in Qatar reported that their financial situation was worse than last year vis-a-vis 20% in Kuwait, 23% in the UAE and 33% in the KSA. When asked how they rate the current period in terms of business conditions, the optimism was again evident with 38% stating it is a `good time'' versus 20% selecting it is a `bad time''. The optimism was most evident in Qatar, the UAE and the KSA with 51%, 51% and 48% of respondents in these countries respectively stating it is a `good time'' and only 7%, 8% and 16% respectively indicating it is a `bad time''. The robustness of the GCC employment market is well evidenced in the responses to the CCI Study with 56%, 45% and 36% of respondents in Qatar, UAE and KSA respectively stating that there are `plenty of jobs'' available versus 9%, 9%, 11% and 11% in Morocco Tunisia, Algeria and Syria responding in the affirmative to the same question. In fact in the North African countries of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria 51%, 51% and 55% of respondents respectively indicated that there were very few jobs available. More on salaries in the Middle East and cost of living across the region can be seen on www.bayt.com in the Bayt.com YouGovSiraj Human Resource Overview 2008.
