Iraq’s first major employment outlook report has just been published by MSelect, a leading Iraqi staffing agency and member of IBBC.

In a wide-ranging survey across multiple sectors, regions and company sizes, there is overwhelmingly bullish news on employment demand and companies intending to hire. On average across all sectors 78% of companies are planning to increase their workforce in the first half of 2022.

The Telecoms industry is expecting the strongest hiring outlook (85%), Oil and Gas (83%), followed by Industrial, Hospitality, NGO’s and Retail (75%), FMCG, Technology and Professional Services (70%) while Education and Healthcare have the weakest outlook (15%-20%).

Hal Miran (CEO of MSelect) comments ‘This upswing mirrors what we are finding across our offices in Iraq. In particular, technical engineers in Telecoms are highly sought after’. Many international providers are expanding and building telecoms infrastructure in Iraq, while on the consumer front there’s a large demand for smart phones. We’re delighted the report is showing a positive outlook on employers’ intentions, as it not only gives a real boost to Iraqi job seeker prospects, but also to the Iraqi economy as a whole, that we see is growing’

‘Our intention is to continue conducting this survey and publish findings every six months and track how the hiring outlook is evolving.’

The report also indicates that larger organisations of over 250+ employees, are hiring the most, and who require the most technically advanced employees. These companies tend to be large internationals, which suggests Iraq is being seen as a more attractive destination for investment. However, a relatively lower hiring outlook of SME’s may be down to financing opportunities for expansion which could pick up as the major corporations begin to demand more support services locally.

Christophe Michels, MD of IBBC also comments’ The report is highly relevant to our members, many of whom are larger corporates, and gives a great indication of how their HR departments can plan for expansion across all sectors, and the opportunity for Iraqi youth find high quality employment and the skills and training required to achieve that’

MSelect will be presenting the key findings on the report on April 28^th at 11am BST via IBBC. To gain access to the report and to sign up for the presentation please below:

Register Here 

IRAQ EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK SURVEY H1 2022 here

 

Hal Miran is a speaker at IBBC Spring Conference on 24th of May. More information about IBBC Spring conference here