based companies intend to hire more local talents, the latest poll conducted by a leading Middle East job site Bayt.com revealed Monday. However, 47.5 percent said the search for local talent is surprisingly proving to be difficult Across the Middle East and North Africa, the survey showed 48.5 percent of the respondents said the company they work for adheres to a localization hiring policy, while only 34.5 percent said "no" and 17 percent were unsure. "The results of our most recent poll show that there is a high demand for local employees in the region; and while some companies maintain they still have a hard time finding local talent, the majority manages to recruit local talent online, which once again reaffirms Bayt.com's leading positioning in the region as the number one job site offering employers in both the public and private sectors immediate and effective access to the largest pool of talent from across the region including highly relevant, highly qualified and highly competitive local talent from each of the GCC countries," said Amer Zureikat, VP Sales, Bayt.com. When asked if their company's localization policy is audited by any government entity, 43 percent of the poll takers said yes, while 39 percent stated no and 18 percent seemed unsure. Furthermore, 43.6 percent of respondents said between 0-5 percent of locals work for their company; another 13.3 percent claimed between 5-15 percent; 8.6 percent said between 16-25 percent; whereas 12 percent stated that between 26-50 percent; 9.7 percent said between 51-75 percent and 12.8 percent said between 76-100 percent of their colleagues within the same company were locals. About 'the average seniority of local citizens' working in those companies, 20.3 percent said that most locals join in at an intermediate level and 21 percent stated at a senior level, while 23.7 percent said locals get hired at an entry level. However, 15.3 percent said that local employees were spread across all levels in their company, while only 19.7 percent were certain that there were no locals working within the same company. The latest poll also showed that while a staggering 47.5 percent admitted their company had a hard time recruiting local talent, 49.2 percent stated their company plan to hire more local talent. In terms of career trajectory, a good 43 percent of the poll takers claimed locals get promoted a lot faster than others, while 21 percent believed that to be untrue and stated both locals and non-locals had the same career trajectory. However, 36 percent surprisingly said locals got promoted a lot slower as compared to others in their company. On ways in which their company recruited local employees, most respondents (41 percent) said recruitment was usually carried out online; 15.6 percent said newspapers; 21.3 percent claimed it was done via traditional head-hunters; and only 1.6 percent said through universities. When asked what career level local talent is most in demand for in their company today, 36.5 percent said intermediate level; 25.8 percent said senior level; 24.6 percent claimed entry level; 5.2 percent were not sure and 7.9 percent felt that local employees get hired evenly across all levels.
