A new report by ServiceNow indicates that the UAE will create over one million jobs by 2030, making it one of the fastest-growing labor markets in the world, and economic growth and digital transformation will be the forces driving the need to employ skilled workers.
ServiceNow, in collaboration with Pearson, released the Workforce Skills Forecast 2025, which predicts that the UAE will require 1.03 million additional workers by the decade to boost total employment by 12.1 percent.
That is compared with the estimated workforce growth of 2.1 percent in the US, 2.8 percent in the UK, and 10.6 percent in India.
The report indicated that manufacturing, education, and retail were likely to lead job creation with an addition of approximately 133,000, 78,00,0 and 60,000 jobs respectively. Finance and healthcare are also expected to expand, with more than 40,000 and 39,000 new positions.
The highest growth rate is expected to be in the energy and utilities sector, which will grow by 33 percent, then education by 31 percent, and manufacturing by 18 percent.
Although technologies in the field of artificial intelligence are evolving at a very fast pace, the report claims that technology will increase demand but expand the range of employees.
With financial services, such as agency AI, the work of an average of about 17,000 full-time workers could be done, or approximately 6.6 percent of the existing workforce.
However, the total employment in the industry is expected to increase by 26 per cent due to the increase in the economy and the necessity to hire workers capable of implementing and using new technologies.
Area Vice President and General Manager for the GCC at ServiceNow, William O’Neill, said, “What we are seeing in the UAE, as well as in nearly every other country surveyed, is that AI augmentation will be central to capturing the next wave of economic growth. The future of work depends on collaboration between people and AI, and it’s a future that’s hiring now.”
The report notes a particularly sharp increase in demand among professionals in the field of technology. Although the total labor market is projected to expand by 12.1 percent, the demand for tech roles is predicted to increase by 54 percent.
The current estimate of the UAE has about 169,000 technology jobs out of the estimated 8.5 million available positions. The number of extra tech specialists required by organizations is projected to exceed 91,000 by 2030.
Search marketing strategists are one of the fastest advancing positions, with approximately 5,600 new positions being projected in the year 2011, followed by computer programmers, 4,200 positions, and computer systems analysts, 2,700 positions.
In response to the growing skills gaps, ServiceNow announced ServiceNow University in May, a learning platform to equip workers with skills in an AI-driven economy.
O’Neill stated that “To get ahead of labour shortfalls and win the future of work, organisations must build an inclusive future for workers.”
He added that companies, to implement AI responsibly, must strengthen governance structures and invest significant sums in upskilling to produce more resilient and innovative workforces.
The Workforce Skills Forecast 2025 is founded on the analysis of 5,600 jobs in 10 countries, studying how 34 new technologies are going to affect jobs in the next five years, using labour market data, such as job posts and census data.
