Startup sector jobs in the UAE and the larger Middle East region continues to be the top draw for tech talents from India and other regions, despite large-scale employee firing by startup ventures and big tech companies globally and in many regional markets, hiring experts said.
Faster career development prospects, wider job and industry exposure and higher pay packages and incentives such as ESOPs (employee stock options) are driving this trend.
The growing churn in jobs in the sector, coupled with the work-from-home (WFH) mode, however, has led to a drastic fall in average employee job tenure in companies.
Major attractions of startup jobs
“Increasingly, job aspirants, especially tech talents, are looking for wider industry experience and exposure and startups offer the perfect fit for it,” Grace Eldridge, Business Director at James Douglas Middle East, a senior leadership talent search firm, told Arabian Business.
Eldridge said startup jobs are also in demand because they provide opportunities to handle wider roles – thereby increased prospects for on-job learning – and faster career development by way of quicker promotion avenues.
“Employees get to grow, along with the growth of the startups,” said the senior executive at James Douglas Middle East, an affiliate of global leadership search firm EMA Partners.
Financial incentives such as part-ownerships, ESOPs and hefty joining bonuses are the other major attractions of startup jobs, especially for some of the most sought after tech and other crucial roles, Eldridge said.
Senior executives at other search and hiring firms also confirmed the growing preference of tech talents for the sector’s jobs in the GCC region.
“The ongoing large-scale firing by global tech giants have accelerated this trend, as the laid-off employees can find quick alternatives in startups,” a senior executive at a Dubai-based HR firm said.
Nearly 50,000 job cuts have either taken place or been announced across the technology sector in the past one month alone, according to reports.
Several startups in India, especially in the edtech and fintech segments, have also laid off thousands of employees in recent months.
A recent survey by an India-based talent search firm revealed that despite the mass layoffs, startups remain a preferred choice for employees, with as high as 79 percent of respondents preferring to work with them.
The fast emerging churn in employee job preferences have also impacted tenure of jobs in companies, making ‘company-loyalty’ and ‘employee-loyalty’ as outdated terms in the job market.
“The average tenure of corporate jobs have been falling over the years and the WFH mode during the pandemic period may have fastened the trend,” Eldridge said.
“The average job tenure currently is about 3-5 years, compared to the earlier 8-12 year stint,” she said.
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