Abu Dhabi’s largest property developer, Aldar Properties, in October announced it would slash its workforce by 24 percent as it seeks to cut costs.
The developer plans to shed 105 jobs to match its manpower needs to its scaled-back construction schedule.
An emirate-wide slowdown of projects has prompted several job cuts in Abu Dhabi in recent months.
The capital’s authority for culture and heritage, organisers of Abu Dhabi Film Festival and Abu Dhabi Book Fair, reportedly let go of around 160 of its 500 employees.
Dubai-based investment bank Shuaa Capital announced a round of job cuts in November as it moved away from retail brokerage business after markets in its home base declined and losses increased.
In the first phase 29 people will be affected.
Barclays Plc will move its Africa headquarters in Dubai back to Johannesburg in a move that may affect 123 employees.
Staff will be given the chance to relocate or leave the bank before the Dubai office closes at the end of the year.
According to figures released by Indian Consulate in Dubai, 20,000 Indian workers, mostly labourers working in the construction industry, are leaving UAE in bulk booked flights to India.
They are either being sent back home on long leave, or are being redeployed to work on projects in other Gulf countries, such as Qatar.
Mashreq has announced that it has axed up to 175 staff, four percent of its global workforce, to reflect reduced market activity.
The UAE is poised for two years of slow economic growth as its property sector is hit by the global financial crisis and banks rein in expansion, the central bank governor said.
Growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter would fall to low-single-digit levels in 2009 and 2010, Sultan Bin Nasser Al Suwaidi said, as an economic boom spurred by six years of high oil prices comes to a close.
Still, a slump in the booming property sector would be limited as the country continues to adopt an expansionary fiscal policy, although it will take steps to ring-fence its banking system, Al Suwaidi said.
UAE economic growth will fall by more than half in 2009 to 3.1 per cent from 7.5 per cent this year on lower oil output and slowing consumer spending, EFG-Hermes said yesterday.
Tourism would also slow and force hotels to cut room rates, he warned.
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