Consultancy firm moves staff from Dubai to Saudi

A British consultancy and construction firm has relocated a number of staff from its Dubai office to work on projects in Saudi Arabia, due to the construction slowdown in the emirate, Arabian Business has learnt.

Mace, a global firm with offices across the GCC, is using its existing staff from Dubai to staff its offices in Saudi Arabia and France, however no total figures are available, said the company's Middle East director on Monday.

“We have tried to protect as many people as we can and that’s involved some relocations to other geographic locations, and in some instances it’s meant relocation into other parts of the business with a new scope of work,” said Ian Tarry.

“We are not recruiting but we are using the existing pool we have,” he added. 

Mace is working on a number of projects in Dubai which have been affected by the credit crunch including the Asia Asia hotel at Bawadi, according to MEED.

In December Tarry said a number of redundancies had been made at its Dubai office.

Staff that have relocated to Saudi Arabia volunteered to do so, said Tarry, who added they needed “no persuading”.

A number of projects in Saudi Arabia and Qatar are continuing ahead despite the credit crunch, he added.

“Qatar still seems to be moving forward and so is Saudi, not necessarily at the rate of knots that it was, but seems to be relatively stable," Tarry said.