According to a new survey by Bayt.com, MENA’s leading job site, 87% of professionals predict that remote hiring is bound to increase in the next few months. The survey, carried out between 24th July and 29 August of this year, gives an insight into the current hiring trends in the region and how they have been affected by the spread of COVID-19. Of the employed respondents, 74% claim that their companies are transitioning into fully remote recruitment, while another 72% of job seekers think that online job sites are the most reliable when it comes to credible job opportunities.

Zawya indicates that this digital transformation, driven by the pandemic, should prepare professionals and business owners in the region to adopt a more virtual framework. The results of this survey show that businesses are open to the transition because even after the Coronavirus has been quelled, 80% of decision-makers state that their companies will keep up with the changes in recruitment procedures. The director of Human Resource at Bayt.com, Ola Haddad, noted that employers in the MENA region are reliant on technology to streamline their recruitment process. She added that online platforms are the best place to acquire new hires as they allow companies to scale easily.

At the center of this transformation are talent marketplaces, such as Ureed.com, that play an integral role in the remote scouting and hiring of new workers. These marketplaces are more favorable than the conventional methods of hiring because they have been shown to increase worker engagement, shorten the job search cycle, and create talent-employer matches that would have otherwise been difficult to create. The respondents also cited their reasons for using these online platforms: 28% due to their efficiency in saving time and cost, 9% due to high-quality talent, 5% due to their ease of use and 47%  cited a combination of any of the aforementioned reasons.

The survey further indicates that 87% of the respondents foresee an increase in virtual job fairs. The use of online screening tools is also expected to rise, as 36% and 16% believe that there’ll be an increase in the use of CV tools and online/video recruitment respectively, by potential employers. These tools are set to help employee scouts in their remote management and hiring of new talents.

Ureed.com has been at the forefront of remote work since before the pandemic broke out. As a visionary startup and leader in the gig economy, the online platform has been connecting employers with freelancers from all over the world for over 3 years. In the age of the pandemic, it has been the go-to site for freelance hiring in MENA, enabling countless companies to stay afloat with its wealth of 35K+ competent professionals. Because of its dynamic setup, the transition into a fully virtual workplace after the pandemic broke out was smooth and simple. Since April 2020, all employees have been successfully working from the safety of their homes in compliance with the WHO guidelines.

Reach out to Ureed.com, the GCC’s largest freelance marketplace, if you need to hire freelancers for your project needs.