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Middle East Edition
22nd July 2022
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THE HOT STORY
Frustrated hirers revert to in-person meetings
Companies and candidates frustrated by online applications are reverting to in-person meetings or else are simulating face-to-face introductions in the metaverse, writes the Wall Street Journal’s Callum Borchers. Intel plans to simulate drop-in hiring by hosting a job fair in the metaverse early next year. Tech workers, or those who want to enter the sector but have unconventional backgrounds, will don virtual-reality headsets, select avatars and pitch themselves to the company.  “We’re still working through the details, but I’m assuming people will look like aliens or something,” says Intel spokeswoman Chelsea Hughes, adding that the firm's objective is to prevent imperfect algorithms and unconscious biases from filtering out good candidates.
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MANAGEMENT
Kuwait sovereign wealth fund fires head of London office
Saleh al-Ateeqi, the head of the Kuwait Investment Authority’s London office, has been fired with immediate effect in the wake of high staff turnover and legal battles with former employees.
LEGAL
Worker data will be permanently deleted
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (MHRSD) has said a worker’s data will be permanently deleted from its data bank if the employee leaves the country on an exit and re-entry visa but does not return before the expiration of the visa. In such instances, the status of the worker at the Passport Department (Jawazat) will be changed to “exited and did not return,” following which the worker’s data will be permanently deleted at the MHRSD, and the worker’s status will be changed to "absent from work."
WORKFORCE
UAE tech firms quickly achieve their Emiratisation targets
UAE-based AI and cloud computing technology holding company G42, and Bayanat, its subsidiary specialising in AI-powered geospatial intelligence, have been recognised by the UAE’s Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) for achieving three times their Emiratisation targets in a span of just a month and a half. Maymee Kurian, G42's Group Chief Human Capital and Culture Officer, said: "UAE’s Emiratisation goals are of key importance for the overall progress of the nation, and we are proud to make an active contribution in this endeavour. Capitalising on the new initiative and with several active partnerships with leading universities, we forge ahead with continuing to identify the best Emirati talent, both experienced and fresh graduates, and support their professional growth and development.”
REMOTE WORKING
Older and younger managers are at odds on remote work
Older and younger bosses are divided regarding the disparate treatment that remote and in-office workers can face, according to the findings of a quarterly survey from the Future Forum, a research consortium backed by Slack. Younger bosses are more concerned about workplace inequities associated with flexible arrangements, but the same issue was last among concerns cited by older peers. Older executives, most of whom were in their 50s, said coordination of hybrid-work schedules was their prime concern, followed by productivity and learning. Younger c-suite executives worried about scheduling, and culture. “It’s troubling,” observed Slack’s Brian Elliott.  “The risk we run is that the older generation of executives is missing the fact that their diversity and inclusion goals and their future of work plans are tied together.”
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
Why ending favouritism is the key to building a diverse workforce
Writing for the FT, Grace Lordan says eliminating favouritism will close unexplained pay gaps and boost senior leadership roles for under-represented talent; data tracking and better management can help achieve this.
TAX
Dubai's DP World ‘avoided tax' in UK over vast Thames port
DP World, the Dubai-based global ports operator, has been accused by the UK's HM Revenue & Customs of paying too little stamp duty on its £113m purchase of a vast Thames port. The company bought the site from Shell in 2010.  Documents released from a case at the upper tax tribunal in London show that DP World bought the site for £112.6m. However, the company reported to HMRC that the site's value was £30.6m and it paid stamp duty only on this amount. This tax burden totalled £1.2m, instead of the £4.65m it would have paid under the higher valuation. The company obtained the lower valuation after organising its own inspection by property consultancy King Sturge in November 2009. A spokesman for DP World said: “We are vigorously contesting HMRC's claim and paid all stamp duty required by law on the fair market value of the land when it was purchased in 2010. Over the last ten years, we have invested £2 billion in the UK and around £1 billion of further investment has been earmarked over the next decade.”
INTERNATIONAL
HSBC installs CCP committee in Chinese investment bank
Britain’s biggest lender HSBC has installed a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee in its investment banking subsidiary in the country, becoming the first foreign lender to do so. The FT says the move by the Asia-focused bank reflects the political tension experienced by the firm as it tries to navigate between Beijing and the West. Under Chinese company law, a business must allow a CCP committee to be set up by employees. That said, one Wall Street banking executive said there had been a “longstanding understanding” with the China Securities and Regulatory Commission that most foreign securities or brokerage companies do not require CCP committees. Other foreign banks operating in China, such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Deutsche Bank have so far resisted the formation of such a committee, but some fear the move by HSBC may well add pressure on them to follow suit. An HSBC spokesperson said: “It is important to note that management has no role in establishing such groups, they do not influence the direction of the business, and have no formal role in the day to day activities of the business.”
Germany plans immigration reforms to attract foreign workers
Germany is planning a reform of its immigration system to make the country more attractive to skilled workers who tend to go elsewhere. Labour Minister Hubertus Heil and Interior Ministry Nancy Faeser wrote in an article for business newspaper Handelsblatt that they wanted to turn Germany into an immigration destination. "If we want to attract clever people, we have to offer them more than just simpler processes," they wrote. "We're competing in the search for skilled labour with countries like the United States, Canada and Australia. We're talking good jobs, jobs with collective wage bargaining." Misbah Khan, migration policy specialist and member of parliament for the Green party, which is part of the centre-left coalition government, observed: "Germany has for a long time struggled to make itself visible as an immigration country . . .  Our strong civic rights are an important plus point." Germany is faced with labour shortages that are contributing to soaring inflation. Recently-announced legislation will allow migrants already in Germany more time to find a job, but the two ministers writing in Handelsblatt  said they want to go further to attract people from outside the EU who don’t have an automatic right to work in the bloc.
SFO slammed over Unaoil case as third conviction quashed
An investigation into the handling of the UK Serious Fraud Office’s probe into Monaco-based oil services company Unaoil has found that Lisa Osofsky, the director of the SFO, had made a series of “disastrous” mistakes during the bribery investigation. Blunders by the SFO in the investigation of Unaoil have led to three of four convictions in the case being overturned. Stephen Whiteley, the third, had his jail sentence quashed by the Court of Appeal just hours after the publication of the review into the debacle by former High Court judge Sir David Calvert-Smith. A separate report into disclosure failures that torpedoed the SFO’s trial of two former executives at Serco found that the “inexperience” of the person in charge of disclosure “should have disqualified him” from the job. Osofsky said both reviews were a “sobering read,” adding that the SFO had “embedded a change programme to overhaul [its] working practices and culture” since those cases were running.
Big Four shower staff with pay increases in Singapore
The Big Four accounting firms are offering larger pay deals for staff in Singapore in a reflection of the broader competition for skilled talent in the financial hub, where firms from banks to technology companies are expanding. PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte lifted base salaries starting from July 1st, according to internal documents. Ernst & Young had an off-cycle pay adjustment in April for some parts of the business, on top of a special bonus payout last year and the annual salary review in October, the firm said in a response to Bloomberg queries. KPMG said in May it will increase entry-level salaries by as much as 20%, and offer “market-competitive bonuses.” Employees have “skills and knowledge that make them highly appealing to the market at large, which means that attrition will be inevitable,” observed Janice Foo, head of people for KPMG in Singapore.
Amazon in federal workplace safety probe
Amazon is being investigated by federal authorities after they received reports of health and safety violations at the company’s warehouses. The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) got referrals from the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York concerning claims of safety and health violations at several Amazon facilities, a Labor Department spokeswoman said.  A spokesperson for the Southern District said OSHA on Monday entered Amazon warehouses outside New York City, Chicago and Orlando to inspect for workplace safety issues, including warehouse employees’ pace of work.  “We’ll of course cooperate with OSHA in their investigation,” an Amazon spokeswoman said. “We believe it will ultimately show that these concerns are unfounded.”
 


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