The Monster Employment Index for UAE shows that online hiring fell by 31% in December 2016 when compared to the previous year.

Despite the decline in online hiring, Sanjay Modi, Managing Director of Monster.com Asia Pacific and the Middle East, said the healthcare industry has been one of the top performers in the UAE, with online recruitment reaching a high point in February 2016, when year-on-year growth reached 76%. Throughout 2016, the healthcare industry maintained an average year-on-year growth of nearly 20%.

“It is not surprising that the healthcare sector performed well on our MEI in 2016 as the UAE government places the nation’s healthcare system at high priority and aims to have one of the strongest healthcare systems in the world in line with the National Agenda and 2021 visions,” Modi said.

“There have been a number of developments in the field which may have contributed to the high demand in professionals in the healthcare industry,” Modi said.

Across the Middle East region, recruitment dropped by 41%, with the hospitality sector continuing to record the largest decline at 64%, year-on-year.