Abu Dhabi – Mubasher: The UAE is expected to witness a skilled labor gap worth $50 billion, representing 5% of the GCC country’s economy, Jonathan Holmes, country chair and managing director of Korn Ferry Middle East, said.

The gap, which consists of 11,000 skilled labor, is resulted from organisations focusing too heavily on technology as opposed to human labor, Holmes added during Arabian Business Forum.  

“Organisations have a blinded view of technology, where they have been focusing too heavily on technology as a solution for business, whereas people will become more important and costlier if organizations don’t change that,” Holmes noted.

He urged the Persian country’s authorities to “do more around people” in a bid to avoid a shortage in skilled labor that in return would cause a surge in salaries, stressing the importance of investing in human capital.

“I think people versus tech is the wrong way to look at this. It is not one thing or the other. When you marry tech and people, you will have a true drive of success, [but] humans are still the core asset of businesses. For organizations in various sectors, even in manufacturing, they will still be the core of businesses to be successful. We have to invest in people,” Holmes said.