HR in the UAE and the Gulf: the function that builds the national workforce

More than 190,000 Emiratis were working in the UAE’s private sector by the end of the first half of 2026, spread across nearly 32,000 companies, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation. Ninety-five percent of the companies covered by Emiratisation policies met their targets for the period. [1] A year earlier, the figure stood at just over 152,000 across 29,000 companies. [2] Khalil Al Khoori, MoHRE’s Undersecretary of Labour Market and Emiratisation Operations, said the results reflected the private sector’s growing commitment to embracing national talent. Behind each of those hires is an HR team that sourced, onboarded, paid and developed a new colleague, and that work is changing what the HR function in the UAE is for.

The wider labor market gives HR teams plenty to do. MoHRE’s Labour Market Observatory reported that the private sector workforce grew by 2.5% in the first quarter of 2026, the number of skilled workers rose by 1.5%, and the number of companies operating in the private sector increased by 0.4%. [3] Companies with 50 or more employees are expected to grow the share of Emiratis in skilled roles by 2% a year, in two steps of 1% for each half, with the second-half target due by the end of December. [4] From January 1, the minimum salary for Emiratis in the private sector rose to AED 6,000 a month, the third step in a phased approach that began at AED 4,000 and moved to AED 5,000, and employers had until June 30 to bring existing contracts into line. [5] The Nafis program connects employers with Emirati candidates and supports their training and early careers. For an HR leader, each of these is as much a question of workforce planning, compensation design and career development as it is of hiring.

The operational side of HR has also become more precise. MoHRE’s Ministerial Resolution No. 340 of 2026, in force from June 1, requires private-sector wages to be paid on the first day of each month, raises the Wage Protection System compliance threshold from 80% to 85%, removes the grace period previously given for new employees, and allows employers to delegate payroll processing to third parties once MoHRE has been notified. [6] Payroll that once had a few days of tolerance now runs to a fixed date, which places a premium on HR operations specialists and HR systems that can deliver accuracy every month without manual intervention.

Technology is reshaping the function just as quickly. The UAE has the highest rate of generative AI use in the world, at 73.3% of its working-age population in the second quarter of 2026, according to the Microsoft AI Economy Institute. [7] When Workday opened its Dubai office on October 1, it published research showing that 90% of UAE employees use AI at least weekly and save an average of 3.6 hours a week. The same study found that employees spend 3.4 hours a week correcting or rewriting low-quality AI output, that 32% of organizations are directing the time and cost they save toward training, upskilling and reskilling, and that only 24% are using those savings mainly to cut costs. [8] BCG X’s annual AI at Work report, which surveyed employees in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar, found that 93% of frontline workers in the GCC use AI at least several times a week, compared with 74% globally. Eighty-five percent of frontline employees and 92% of managers said AI had changed the skills expected of them, and 60% of frontline employees believed AI agents could perform at least half of their current responsibilities within three years. [9] In the Gulf, the question for HR is no longer whether to adopt AI. It is how to train people to use it well, how to govern it, and how to redesign roles around it, and those are responsibilities that sit naturally with the people function.

Saudi Arabia has given HR a particularly clear direction this year. On April 5, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development added 69 administrative support professions to the list of occupations reserved fully for Saudi nationals, applying to every private-sector establishment with at least one worker in those roles. [10] Some professions were covered immediately. Others received a six-month transition that ended on October 4, and that group includes Recruitment Manager, Recruitment Specialist, Human Resources Consultant, Human Resources Operations Specialist and Internal Communications Specialist. [11] EnterpriseAM reported that HR managers were also among the roles in the October phase, and that the Human Resources Development Fund, Hadaf, which directed SAR 8.3 billion into private-sector wage support and training in 2025, will subsidize part of new Saudi hires’ salaries for up to two years. [12] The national labor market is well placed to respond. GASTAT’s Labour Force Survey for the second quarter put overall unemployment at 3.0% and unemployment among Saudi nationals at 6.5%, and found that 96.7% of unemployed respondents were willing to accept private-sector roles. [13] Having reached its original Vision 2030 target of 7% ahead of schedule, the Kingdom has set a new goal of 5% by 2030. [14] As of this month, HR and recruitment in the Saudi private sector are career paths built for Saudi professionals, and employers are investing in developing them.

The other GCC markets are moving in the same direction, each at its own pace. In Oman, more than 4,100 Omanis were working as human resources and personnel managers in private companies by late 2025, a sign of how far the localization of people-management roles has already progressed. [15] Oman’s Ministry of Labour created 36,413 jobs in 2025 and plans 60,000 opportunities in 2026, including 33,000 in the private sector, under an Eleventh Five-Year Plan that runs to 2030. [16] Qatar’s Law No. 12 of 2024 established a framework for nationalizing private-sector jobs, and its National Strategy for an Effective and Highly Productive Workforce aims to raise the share of Qataris employed in the private sector from 17% to 20% by 2030. [17] On September 27, the Ministry of Labour named the 22 winners of the first Qatar Private Sector Nationalisation Award, chosen from 426 applications, with financial services recording the highest participation. [18] Bahrain’s National Labour Market Plan for 2023 to 2026 focuses on creating private-sector opportunities for Bahrainis and aligning education with employer needs, [19] and Kuwait’s Vision 2035 combines training programs and employer incentives to bring more Kuwaitis into private companies. [20]

Taken together, these developments are changing the shape of demand for HR professionals across the region. The fastest-growing needs are in national talent development, including graduate programs, leadership pipelines and learning and development designed for national colleagues; in strategic workforce planning that ties localization targets to business growth; in reward and payroll specialists who can manage new salary floors and wage protection rules; and in HR technology and people analytics, as platforms like Workday expand their presence in the region. Alongside these sits a newer requirement: HR leaders who can guide an organization’s adoption of AI, build the training that turns individual productivity into team capability, and set sensible rules for its use. In Saudi Arabia, experienced Saudi HR and talent acquisition professionals are now among the most sought-after people in the market. In the UAE, Emirati HR professionals with business partnering and talent development experience are in a similar position. For international HR professionals in the region, the greatest value increasingly lies in specialist expertise, such as reward, organizational design and HR systems, and in the ability to develop national colleagues into future HR leaders.

Looking to the fourth quarter, I expect HR hiring in the UAE to concentrate on the roles that support the second-half Emiratisation milestone and the year ahead: HR business partners, talent development and early-careers leads, learning and development specialists, and HR operations and payroll professionals with strong systems experience. In Saudi Arabia, the completion of the October 4 transition should keep demand high for senior Saudi HR and recruitment leaders through the end of the year, while regional HR teams based in Dubai and Riyadh coordinate workforce plans across several GCC markets at once. Gartner will publish its view of the top CHRO priorities for 2027 in November, and I expect AI adoption and workforce capability to feature prominently. [21]

For employers, the HR professionals who can do this work well are already in demand. Attracting them will depend less on the size of the team they inherit and more on the mandate they are given: a clear role in shaping workforce strategy, a seat in conversations about growth, and the resources to develop people over several years rather than several months.

The 190,000 Emiratis now working in the UAE’s private sector are, among other things, a measure of what HR teams across the country have delivered. Across the Gulf, HR is no longer only the function that hires, pays and administers. It is the function building the workforce that the region’s next decade of growth will depend on.

Sources

1. Khaleej Times, reporting MoHRE data via WAM, Emiratisation: Over 190,000 nationals employed in private sector, July 21, 2026.
2. Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, MoHRE: More than 152,000 Emiratis employed in the private sector by end of June 2025, July 21, 2025.
3. Gulf News, UAE private sector workforce grows 2.5 per cent in Q1 2026 as skilled jobs and companies increase, June 17, 2026.
4. Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, MoHRE: 30 June deadline for achieving Emiratisation targets for first half of 2026, May 7, 2026.
5. Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, MoHRE raises minimum wage for Emiratis in the private sector to AED 6,000 per month, effective 1 January 2026, December 31, 2025.
6. Morgan Lewis, UAE Introduces New Wage Protection System Resolution Effective 1 June 2026, May 2026.
7. Middle East AI News, reporting the Microsoft AI Economy Institute’s Global AI Diffusion Report for Q2 2026, UAE retains top world AI use ranking, September 25, 2026.
8. Workday, Workday Launches in the UAE to Help Organisations Transform HR, Finance, and IT in the AI Era, October 1, 2026.
9. Khaleej Times, More than 9 out of 10 UAE and GCC employees use AI, says report, reporting BCG X’s AI at Work report, September 2, 2026.
10. People Matters Middle East, Saudi Arabia plans 100% Saudization of 69 supporting administrative jobs in private sector, April 2026.
11. T&S Law, Saudi Arabia Immigration Alert: 100% Saudization Requirements Introduced for Administrative Support Occupations, September 16, 2026.
12. EnterpriseAM, Saudization mandate targets back-office roles, with no exemptions for SMEs, April 7, 2026.
13. Trading Economics, reporting GASTAT’s Labour Force Survey for Q2 2026, September 30, 2026.
14. Argaam, Saudi unemployment rises to 6.8% in Q2 2025: GASTAT, September 30, 2025.
15. HRKatha, Oman creates over 200,000 job and training opportunities in 4 years, January 9, 2026.
16. Muscat Daily, MoL announces comprehensive plan to provide 60,000 jobs in 2026, January 21, 2026.
17. The Peninsula, Empowering Qatari talent, February 19, 2026.
18. Gulf Times, Ministry unveils winners of 1st Qatar Private Sector Nationalisation Award, September 2026.
19. Ministry of Labour (Bahrain), Labour Minister announces National Labour Market Plan (2023-2026), 2023.
20. Kuwait Times, reporting KUNA, Kuwait Vision 2035 emphasizes private sector, Kuwaitization, 2025.
21. Gartner, The Top CHRO Trends and Priorities Shaping 2027, webinar, November 5, 2026.