Discovering Dubai's Hiring Market: Insights from My First Year

When I arrived in Dubai in 2023, I was immediately struck by the energy and the speed of growth. Everywhere I looked, companies were expanding fast. Hotels, airports, retailers… everyone was hiring, sometimes just trying to keep up with the pace.

Coming from years in AI and data consulting, I couldn't help but analyze what I was seeing. I looked at two different sides of the job market: the field roles and the management roles. The costs, the processes, and even the challenges were not the same. Yet my feeling was clear from the start: the system was broken. Everyone was hiring, but few were really improving how it was done.

High Turnover and Constant Demand in Dubai's Job Market

One of the first things I noticed was how quickly people changed jobs. In hospitality, annual turnover is often around 30 percent or more. That means thousands of positions constantly reopen. Retail isn't very different, with new stores, seasonal peaks, and e-commerce pushing demand up again and again.

Recruitment teams spend huge amounts of time trying to fill the same roles over and over. And in most cases, they still rely on traditional methods that are slow and costly.

This isn't just a challenge. It's also a huge opportunity to do things differently.

The Real Cost of Recruitment: Field Roles vs Management Roles

Looking deeper, I realized how wide the gap was between field and management roles.

For management positions, agencies usually charge between 15 and 25 percent of the annual salary, which can easily reach $4,000 to $8,000 per hire.

For field roles, the cost is lower, often between $500 and $1,000 per worker, but the volume is so high that the total expense becomes massive.

And it's not only about money. Filling a role can take 3 to 6 weeks, during which companies lose productivity and sometimes lose good candidates to faster competitors.

Multiply this by hundreds or even thousands of hires every year, and it's easy to see why many HR teams feel like they're running in circles.

Tech-First Recruitment for Dubai's New Generation

What surprised me most was how open people were to new ideas. Dubai has a young, ambitious workforce. Millennials and Gen Z expect things to move quickly. They want clear answers and digital processes that make sense.

That's exactly where technology can make a difference. Autonomous AI interviews, which I had been working on for years, can change the equation. They reduce time-to-hire by up to 75 percent and cut costs by more than half, while creating a faster and fairer experience for candidates.

Hiring Challenges Across Dubai's Key Industries

Every sector I explored faced the same problem: high turnover, slow recruitment, and rising costs. But behind that, there was a real willingness to improve.

Hospitality and F&B Recruitment

Over 300,000 frontline staff in Dubai, with almost 100,000 new hires every year just to keep operations running.

Retail and Supermarket Staffing

Around 250,000 employees across the UAE, with constant churn and seasonal needs.

Aviation and Airport Operations

About 600,000 jobs across the Middle East aviation sector, half of them being frontline or operational roles.

Why AI-Driven Recruitment Matters for the GCC Market

Coming to Dubai was not just about observing growth. It was about understanding how people and companies connect. What I saw is that the region has a massive opportunity to rethink recruitment, not by adding more manual steps, but by building smarter systems that can adapt to the pace of the market.

The frontline workforce across the GCC represents a recruitment market of more than 2 billion dollars every year. Yet most companies still rely on outdated processes that are slow, expensive, and hard to scale.

When I look back on my first year here, I realize something simple. Dubai is not just a business hub. It's a living laboratory for how the future of work and recruitment can evolve. And the lessons I've learned here are shaping everything we're building at Aikho today.