Only 27 percent of UAE workers are highly satisfied with their work.

The employee satisfaction in the UAE is comparably low in the region, with only 27 percent of workers being highly satisfied with their work, a survey revealed.
Lebanon and Morocco have the highest levels of job satisfaction at 36 percent and 35 percent respectively, the research, commissioned by the Middle East’s number one job site--Bayt.com--alongside research specialists YouGovSiraj, found, TradeArabia wrote.
The study also noted that of all the nationalities surveyed, Persian Gulf Arab nationals scored the lowest in terms of job satisfaction, with only 26 percent happy at their work.
A total of 9,760 workers across the region and Pakistan responded to the survey in March 2008.
Entitled the ’Employee Loyalty survey,’ the survey aims to understand the perceptions and attitudes of Middle Eastern employees with regard to their career, the work they do and the organization they work for.
Saudi Arabia fares the worst in terms of work satisfaction. 40 percent of respondents say their satisfaction with their work organization is low. The other Persian Gulf Arab countries, with the exception of Bahrain, witnessed comparably low levels, with Kuwait and the UAE joined at 34 percent and Qatar at 30 percent.
Around the Middle East, Algeria follows Saudi Arabia as the country with the second lowest level of satisfaction, with 38 percent saying they are not satisfied at work. This contrasts with Lebanon where 34 percent of workers were highly satisfied with their organization.
In terms of motivation levels, the UAE scores lowest with only 65 percent of employees agreeing; “I feel motivated to perform well in the work I do“. Again, the UAE scores lowest when employees were asked; “I feel committed to the organization which I currently work for.“
“Understanding that employees in one market are very pessimistic about their work, while employees in a neighboring country are largely optimistic, enables all stakeholders to reflect on the drivers of these attitudes and assess their current working practices, and understand where there is a potential need for change,“ commented Bayt.com’s CEO Rabea Ataya.
The survey also measures loyalty to an employer. Overall where satisfaction is high, loyalty is also high. Workers in Lebanon are the most committed with 73 percent feeling very loyal, followed by 66 percent of employees in Morocco. The figures drop to 54 percent and 56 percent feeling very loyal in Saudi and UAE, respectively.
Another key finding from the survey was that employee happiness has a direct impact on loyalty and productivity, job turnover and economic growth for businesses.
“Of those who are satisfied with their current employers, 93 percent feel fully engaged in their work and 92 percent feel motivated to perform well. These interesting statistics about satisfaction with organizations in the Persian Gulf Arab countries perhaps point to the fact that despite highly favorable economic conditions, companies are not going far enough to make their employees feel like valued members of the workforce,“ explained YouGovSiraj.com’s CEO Nassim Ghrayeb.
“This knowledge is of fundamental importance to businesses, especially in the face of increased costs of recruiting staff, compared to the actual costs of retaining them.“
Other questions gauging attitudes towards specific elements of the working environment including good access to information for completing work, feeling valued at work and ability of organization to attract the best talent, demonstrated that Saudi Arabia scored the lowest in five out of the seven categories.
The total number of respondents in the survey was 9,760 and included adult males and females aged between 20 and 62 years of all nationalities, living in the UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Pakistan.

OPEC, the oil producing group, has warned that the price of crude could keep rising to reach $200 a barrel, BBC said.
OPEC president Chakib Khelil blamed the falling value of the US dollar, which makes other assets, including oil, more attractive for foreign investors. His comments came as oil prices hit a fresh high, just below $120 a barrel. Prices were lifted by a strike at a UK refinery that disrupted North Sea production, and supply problems in Nigeria due to pipeline attacks.
BP shut down a key North Sea pipeline at the weekend after staff walked out of the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland in a two-day strike over pensions. US light crude hit a high of $119.93 a barrel before edging down to finish at $118.79.
The BP-run pipeline from the Forties oil fields in the North Sea relies on steam and electricity from the Ineos refinery at Grangemouth.
Although BP has said it can re-open the pipeline within 24 hours of the strike’s end on Tuesday, it will take weeks for the refinery to return to full capacity.

Sovereign wealth funds have mushroomed 24 percent annually over the past three years to hold a total of $3.5 trillion in 2007, AFP quoted a US economic firm as saying on Monday.
Global Insight said that projected on that annual growth pace, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) would surpass the entire current economic output of the United States by 2015, and the European Union by 2016. The surge in the funds comes as emerging economies, flush with swelling financial resources from higher energy and commodities prices, invest abroad seeking better returns on their investments.
Global Insight, a Massachusetts-based company specialized in economic and financial analysis and forecasting, noted that SWFs were changing the nature of ties between developed and developing countries. “Armed with such large amounts of debt-free cash, sovereign wealth funds are the new financial power brokers, replacing the combined financial muscle of hedge funds and private equity, and usurping central banks as the international capital providers of last resort,“ Jan Randolph, head of sovereign risk at Global Insight, said.

Warren Buffett, the world’s richest person, said on Monday the US economy is in a recession that will be more severe than most people expect, Reuters reported.
Buffett made his comments on CNBC television after his Berkshire Hathaway Inc agreed to invest $6.5 billion in the takeover of chewing gum maker Wm Wrigley Jr Co by Mars Inc in a $23 billion transaction. “This is not a field of specialty for me, but my general feeling is that the recession will be longer and deeper than most people think,“ Buffett said. “This will not be short and shallow. “I think consumers are feeling gas and food prices,“ he added, “and not feeling they’ve got a lot of money for other things.“
On Wednesday, the US Commerce Department is expected to say how fast the economy grew in the first quarter. Economists on average have projected that gross domestic product grew at an annualized 0.2 percent rate in the quarter.
Two quarters of declining GDP is a traditional indicator of recession. That last happened in 2001.

EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said Monday he would launch legal action against Britain after forecasting that its public deficit would break EU rules in 2008. “We will launch again a report to start an excessive deficit procedure,“ Almunia told journalists. “I intend to present this report for the adoption of the college (of EU commissioners) on June 11.“
Earlier the commission forecast that the British public deficit was set to swell from 2.7 percent of output last year to 3.3 percent in 2008 and 2009, breaching an EU limit of 3.0 percent, AFP wrote.
Under the EU legal action, Britain would have to commit to plan to wrestle its deficit back down to the 3.0 percent limit. Although London would face pressure from other EU countries to stick to the plan, Britain does not face the prospect of fines if it does not, as countries using the Euro do when they find themselves in the same situation.
In October, Britain’s EU partners dropped previous disciplinary deficit action against London after concluding that the British government had reined in its fiscal shortfall within the European limit after breaching it in 2005.