A significant percentage of Gulf employees are keeping their heads down, avoiding talk of pay rises, in the hope they can stay out of the firing line.
Almost four out of 10 employees are deferring potentially difficult conversations regarding pay, focusing instead on keeping their job, a poll conducted on Maktoob Business has found.
"Just let the company, and my job survive. Now is not the time to be worrying about pay rises," thirty-eight percent of respondents agreed.
Unemployment statistics in the region are often delayed and annual, and immigration figures showing the net inflow or outflow of a population are the subject of controversy.
In the UAE, for example, investment bank EFG-Hermes has predicted the population will decline by 5.5 percent in 2009, driven by Dubai where the population will contract by 17 percent.
The UAE government itself, however, has denied those figures, claiming it is still issuing more visas than it is cancelling.
The UAE’s unemployment rate stood at 4 percent in 2008, up slightly from 3.45 percent in the previous year, according to figures from the Ministry of Economy.
However, those figures would exclude all expatriates sent home after losing their jobs, a number that would have picked up sharply from the fourth quarter of 2008.
Emirati unemployment stands at 13.8 percent, according to official figures.
The Gulf state of Qatar, which saw its population grow during the first five months of the year, witnessed a population fall of more than 40,000 people in June from the previous month.
The latest set of official figures show unemployment is rising across the region. In Iran unemployment is running at 12.5 percent, Bahrain 3.5 percent, Saudi 10 percent and Egypt at 9 percent.
Despite the gloom, not everyone is willing to keep their head below the parapet because of tough trading conditions. In fact, some employees believe it strengthens their arm in pay negotiations.
"If I don't get a significant increase, I am leaving. There are other opportunities out there for me," a third of respondents to the poll agreed.
A further 19 percent of respondents want an above inflation pay rise, while 10 percent of those polled said they did not expect to be worse off after the next round of pay negotiations - that is they expect to be paid an inflation adjusting increase.
Inflation is set to drop to as low as 2 percent in some Gulf countries due to the economic downturn.
Property prices, one of the biggest components in inflation calculations, have fallen by up to 50 percent in Dubai, 30 percent in Qatar and 10 percent in Jeddah. Analysts are predicting further falls across the region.