Closing the skills gap in the UAE

Alexander Tsatsaronis, 19, left Greece in 2012 to study for a diploma in hospitality and commercial cookery at Dubai’s International Centre for Culinary Arts. Since then, he has had work experience at five-star hotels in Jebel Ali, catered for 900 people at the Grand Hyatt Dubai and landed a job at The Address Dubai Marina as a commis chef.

“Dubai is the biggest place in hospitality at the moment,” he said. “You get a lot of work exposure.”

His story is just one of many illustrating how, as the UAE’s economy grows, demand for skilled workers is increasing rapidly.

“It’s easy to make a capital investment and to build a great hotel, said Sunjeh Raja, the managing director at the International Centre for Culinary Arts (ICCA). “But manning and running it is a big, daunting task. In the hospitality sector, the biggest difficulty has been finding skilled people to work. It’s an absolute challenge in every hotel. Everybody is short-staffed.”

But the problem is not unique to the hospitality sector. Skills shortages are proving a headache for healthcare providers, as booming demand for medical care is generating a dire need for life sciences graduates, according to a recent report by Deloitte and Tecom. It is a pattern that is being replicated in key industries across the economy.

“The Gulf’s unique challenge is the size of demand for labour, and the skill gap. There’s a clear mismatch between [new] graduates and the skills needed,” said Sanjay Modi, the managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at Monster.com, the recruitment website.

This mismatch is “a global issue”, said Markus Weisner, the chief executive of Aon Hewitt Middle East.

But the issue is serious in the Arabian Gulf because some industries face particularly serious staffing crunches, while others are unpopular with regional school leavers.

“There are shortages of health, engineering, mechanical and high-tech skills,” said Mr Weisner. He also highlighted a “cultural issue” where some industries, including building and engineering, are often regarded as less desirable career paths.

“You’re seeing very few carpenters, plumbers, nurses and car mechanics that have been educated here,” he says. As Mr Raha points out, you also see very few Emirati chefs.

As the UAE moves towards its aim of building a knowledge-based economy, the country needs all the skilled graduates it can get.

“The region will throw up a lot of opportunities,” says Rob Melville, who teaches corporate governance at Cass Business School, part of City University London. “The challenge is, how do you get Emiratis and the education system involved?”

For Ayoub Kazim, the managing director of Tecom’s education cluster, which operates Dubai International Academic City and Dubai Knowledge Village, one answer is increased participation in vocational training, with more Emiratis taking courses such as the one Mr Tsatsaronis took.

“We face many challenges when it comes to the mindset of Emiratis when it comes to vocational education,” said Mr Kazim. There’s a stigma affecting vocational training, he said. Although university is not suited to everyone, only 3 per cent of students in the UAE undertake vocational training.

He points to the Government’s establishment of new applied institutes and a new policy that means unsuccessful university applicants will be able to enrol in vocational courses instead.

Career guidance needs to play a bigger role in helping Emiratis make decisions about their futures.

Students “don’t have awareness of market expectations, what the job market is like or expectations for particular sectors. We need to focus on this much more”, said Mr Kazim.

“The selection of education is not driven by what future career prospects exist in specific fields,” he said.

Analysts believe more needs to be done to develop career decisions throughout secondary and tertiary education.

“Career choices are decided at the high school level. After that you’re pretty much on your track,” said Charu Dhingra, a senior consultant at Aon Hewitt.

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