eFinancialCareers

The GCC might be seeing a raft of applications and relocations of Western expat bankers, but many who make the move are realising that the region doesn’t quite live up to the level of pay, benefits and career progression they enjoyed back home. This means firms are struggling to hold on to the best talent.

“There are a lot of people reaching out from around the world,” says Varina Nissen, managing director of Manpower Middle East. “They’re not finding that the composition of remuneration and benefits completely matches what they leave behind.”

The recruitment firm says that the number of applications they have received from UK bankers has increased by 250% in the last six months and by 100% in the last two weeks alone.

But it has also seen a surge in the number of Western candidates in the region who want to change jobs, because they believe promotion and other long-term incentive plans are not based on fairness and merit.

According to our research, regional banks in the GCC have massively increased their wage bill in the last year in order to compete with the influx of Western institutions. What’s more, a study by Hewitt Associates shows that on average salaries now make up 60% of banks’ operating costs.

However, benefits are only slowly moving towards the Western mould, according to research by Mercer Middle East.

Paul O’Malley, worldwide partner and total compensation and rewards specialist at Mercer, says the traditional end-of-service indemnity payment usually awarded to expats on retirement is now shifting to final salary basis.

This is on top of the likes of flight allowance, housing subsidy and school fees, which have become a standard part of bankers' compensation packages.

What’s more, Nissen says that organisations are beginning to realise the importance of transparency in the career development process.

Still, if expats were likely to jump ship after a short time in the job, they’d be following the example of many of their peers. Leading industry figures speaking at a recent conference said that the average tenure for a banker in Dubai is just seven months.