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FEATURE

salary drive

a liberalizing economy and the growth of some professions are pushing salaries up - but job seekers need to do more than show up to cash in.

by tariq ahmed elseewi

dalia dabbous, a journalism student in her final year at the american university in cairo, is as sensitive as anyone to the fortunes of new entrants to egypt's labor force. speculating with friends at a crowded university cafe about the monthly salary she'll find after graduation, dabbous waxes idyllic: "£e 4000. i think that would be enough." when her friends chortle, however, dabbous concedes that she may have to settle for much less. "realistically, though? probably £e 1,000, maybe £e 1,500 if i'm lucky."

her pessimism, at first glance, seems unwarranted. with increasing local and foreign investment in egypt bolstering established private sector companies and entrepreneurs starting new businesses every day, career opportunity is knocking for some. companies are scrambling to fill positions in fields like finance, information technology, marketing and accounting, and demand is running high for skilled secretarial and administrative staff. human resource managers, who are being hired to manage the entire process, have themselves become a hot commodity. and competition for the limited number of experienced workers who have both valuable skills and the ability to constantly learn new ones is pushing some monthly salaries to £e 10,000 and higher.

dabbous's blend of hope and realism, though, might be well placed. salaries for even those highly sought-after professionals are still well below what they might expect to make in similar positions outside egypt. and while the liberalization of egypt's economy doubtless means expanded professional opportunity, recruiters say there are still relatively few people with the requisite skills to cash in on the country's professional boom. as hisham el-badawy, managing director of the recruitment company jobmaster, puts it, "the market isn't saturated with qualified candidates."

heightened demand for those qualified few, observers agree, is a direct result of the changes that have accompanied egypt's decade-long program of economic reform. the ranks of some professions, such as marketing, investment banking and technological information management have swelled as egypt's economy liberalizes.

"the egyptian economy is clearly now driven by the private sector," says hussein rouchdy of the executive search firm skillrate. steps toward dismantling the country's bloated public sector have also resulted in a new awareness of the value of a talented and creative workforce, rouchdy says. companies that realize they must compete for both a market share and qualified employees have started to devote more money and energy to recruiting and developing staff.

"when organizations start to look at their human resources, they're much more concerned than they ever were before," says rouchdy, and the result has been a steady climb in the salaries of quality employees. "people are no longer an expense, they are actually part of the capital."

managing this capital, say observers, has gone from being an afterthought to occupying a central position in the structure of any company. as companies begin looking beyond people with specific skills towards people who are capable of being trained and retrain-ed, the task of helping organizations and employees to reinvent themselves has grown in importance.

"human resources managers were considered simple administrators before. people were shunted into those positions from anywhere else in the company, even secretaries," says laurie tapozada, president of the human resources firm hr first international ltd.

over the last few years, though, companies trying to boost productivity and match available talent to their needs have come full circle. the realization that skillful hr management can improve a company's efficiency and, ultimately, its bottom line, says tapozada, has translated into a willingness to pay for top-quality hr staffers.

"hr managers can put an efficient structure in place and manage performance," she says, "and this enhances the value of that company."

changing perceptions of human resources are also beginning to have an effect on the way that some of egypt's educational institutions shape their curricula and equip graduates for the demands of the job market. students at auc, notes farouk el hitami, dean of the university's school of business, economics, and communications, can't help but notice that demand, and the prospects for jobs, are strongest in a certain handful of fields.

"in the last 3 or 4 years there has been a rebalancing of the demand for university graduates in the fields of business administration, mass communication, economics and computer science," he says. "demand in all other areas has been dramatically reduced."

maha guindi, director of auc's placement services, observes that soaring enrollments in these high-demand majors present the university with the challenge of matching its curricula to the needs of employers. tracking former students in the workplace and surveying companies to determine which types of workers and skills they need, she says, is the best gauge of what's required: "we see the kinds of fields that are needed and then address them."

but what kinds of skills really fly in the new employment market? the prescriptions for success are predictable: for starters, employers say, new graduates looking to make a splash need to know how to work with computers and must possess foreign language skills. muhammed mustafa, leased line manager at the information technology company the way out, explains that international business and foreign clientele make multilingual employees essential. and egypt's changing corporate culture, notes jobmaster's el-badawy, is creating new demands for support staff as well: only 20 percent of secretaries, he estimates, have the necessary skills to function in today's economy.

as the economy continues to develop, observers say, job candidates who lack the ability to learn quickly and constantly, or who regard a job with a fixed set of duties as an entitlement, are going to be at a serious disadvantage.

"people need to be adaptive in gaining skills employers want," says guindi. "people who are not coping with the required changes, who are not up to date with technology or employers' demands, who are slow learners, lose."

rouchdy agrees, arguing that a more competitive economy leaves little room for lagging employees. "the loser is the pure old [public sector] employee who is just looking after his annual raise for the stake of stability," he says, "who can't accept with daring spirit that change is coming, and who can't learn how to face the change by increasing his knowledge and expertise."

for job seekers who can proudly claim that they're not dead wood, sectors such as tourism, construction and pharmaceuticals are looking to hire skilled workers as they face the relatively new task of having to actively market their services or products.

pharmaceutical companies faced with increasing competition are cranking up their marketing efforts by seeking representatives who can promote their products to doctors and sell them to pharmacists. tourism companies, likewise, are trying to find and retain the most talented workers in marketing and promotion in order to set themselves apart from the myriad of tourist services and locations in egypt. and with the boom in construction, mostly outside cairo, construction companies are looking for managerial staff.

"on-site construction engineers are being paid more because there's a lot of projects and few qualified candidates," says el-badawy.

the computer industry and mobile telephone services are also seller's job markets for well-trained and innovative employees. with mobile telephone services growing at a breakneck pace, mobinil and click are struggling to fill positions in sales, marketing, customer service, finance and technical services, says el-badawy.

mustafa of the way out explains that in the computer and information technology industries, systems and network administrators are particularly in demand. qualified candidates in these fields are especially rare because the jobs require both problem-solving skills and a level of training that's hard to find locally.

"these positions are hard to fill because you're not only looking for experience and training but for trouble-shooting talents," mustafa says. "these people have to get certificates from oracle, microsoft, and unix. in some of these fields you have to go abroad to get more than an introduction."

tarek amin, marketing manager and managing partner at the internet job placement firm career egypt.com, adds that in the field of computers, web developers, programmers, software developers and testers and oracle dss systems managers are particularly hot commodities.

with demand for skilled and creative employees outstripping supply, the result should be steady upward pressure on salaries. and to a certain extent, it seems to be happening: rouchdy says that in the last three years, pay for some management positions, especially in finance, has increased "by at least 300 percent."

"a financial manager with a cpa or cma and with 15 to 20 years experience can reach £e 20,000 or £e 25,000 in multinational companies, especially those dealing with fast moving consumer goods, and brokerage companies," el-badawy says.

those suddenly-in-demand human resources managers have also seen their salaries take off lately. whereas an experienced hr manager might have been making £e 2,000 per month five years ago, hr's tapozada explains, that is now an entry level salary. managers in a medium-sized company can expect monthly salaries of up to £e 7000, with pay rising to as much as £e 20,000 per month for larger companies.

"some human resources managers are getting paid more than their counterparts in the united states," says tapozada.

for most new entrants to the job market, however, the prospects are much less dizzying. and while it's difficult to identify an average starting salary for graduates of elite institutions - auc's hitami speculates £e 2,000 may be "the low average", while guindi suggests £e 1,200 to 1,500 is more common - it's clear that even highly skilled professionals may be hired at a considerable discount to their counterparts in other countries.

"salaries in egypt are lower for it," explains the way out's mustafa. "people in europe are offered more. say you make £e 3,000 in egypt; someone in the states will make $5,000."

similarly, web developers, though particularly in demand, can only expect to make between £e 1,500 and £e 2,000 starting off, according to amin of careeregypt.com.

still, despite lower salaries compared to their overseas counterparts, employees in high-demand fields face other, less financially quantifiable reasons for staying in the motherland rather than taking their skills abroad. "there are social reasons for staying," says mustafa. "you have your wife, your family, your culture. if the it worker is good here, he'll get a good job," he adds.

and employers, mindful of this salary gap, are adding other incentives to the packages they offer to lure the best and the brightest. compensation schemes can include profit-sharing bonuses or stock option plans. some companies offer their employees the use of mobile phones or automobiles, advanced health care plans, or generous retirement packages to keep them happy and out of the hands of competitors.

"now companies are actually looking at pension plans as an attractive part of the package, especially in the telecommunications and banking industries, to increase staying power for employees. there's quite a bit of company hopping," says tapozada.

pharmaceutical companies like bristol myers squibb and jensen, for example, are locked in a battle for market representatives and sometimes offer company cars to lure the best ones, said an employee wooed by both. workers at the mobile telephone companies, in addition to the satisfaction of working in a well-paying, high-growth industry, are drawn in with what might be the most effective bait in contemporary egypt. as one loyal employee exclaimed: "we get a free mobile!"

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