Middle East-based HR consultancy firm predicted unemployment rate in UAE to rise, particularly in June and July.
In a The Filipino Times report, citing Gulf News, Tuscan Consulting revealed in its survey that businesses will get to have a clear vision of what coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has done to their operations come summer—a reason layoffs could see a rise.
In the survey, about 40 percent of the respondents, employers in UAE, stated that they have asked some if their staff to take unpaid leave amid the pandemic.
Meanwhile, around 20 percent of employers have devided to cut the employees’ salaries while 24 percent terminated some of their employees.
The HR consultance firm that 22 percent of businesses had not done any drastic decision yet to reduce costs.
Tuscan Consulting also revealed that one of the first to cut more employees will probably be the airline industry, especially after they stopped domestic and international flights. At the height of pandemic, airline companies were the first ones who got affected the most, followed by the real estate sector.
The survey revealed that only 30 to 50 percent of real estate companies had only cut salaries.
“HR teams are likely to be involved in more difficult conversations in the coming months. It is advisable for all HR practitioners to have dialogue, show empathy and take employee consent and ensure legal compliance for any drastic measures on salary and benefits,” Gulf News quoted Tuscan Consulting as saying.