Senior banker warns UAE job cuts may not be over

A senior UAE banker has warned that a second wave of job cuts could hit the country next year as companies continue to struggle amid the global downturn.

Chris de Bruin, the country head of consumer banking at Standard Chartered estimated that up to 1,000 jobs had been lost so far in local banks.

“We are not out of the woods yet, by no stretch of imagination. We may see some corporate failures and stress in the corporate world,” de Bruin said in comments published on Sunday by UAE daily The National.

“Our biggest challenge [as consumer bankers] are people who have lost their jobs.”

The worldwide downturn has seen thousands of jobs lost in the financial and property sectors in the UAE during the past 12 months.

“Next year we will still see quite a lot of stress as people continue to lose their jobs. We are still on high alert,” he told the paper.

The warning came despite signs of renewed economic confidence emerging in the UAE.

Shuaa Capital's investor sentiment index rose for the third month running in October while Dr Omar bin Sulaiman, the vice chairman of the UAE Central Bank, said last week he expected the economy to grow between 3.5 and 4.5 percent next year.

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