Qatar recorded the highest number of professionals with the biggest salaries in the region, with 10 per cent earning $8,001 or more each month, in a new study.

Across the Mena region, the average monthly salary differs considerably from country to country, according to the Middle East Salary Survey, conducted by Bayt.com, the leading job site in the region.

Bayt.com held its Salary Trends 2011 event recently at the Holiday Villa Hotel & Residence City Centre, Doha.

The round table discussions were attended by prominent HR executives and featured Bayt.com’s top professionals who answered the question “Where do we stand today when it comes to salaries?” and revealed informative up-to-date insights on the Mena region’s current salaries.

“At Bayt.com we are committed to sharing valuable insights and best practices that would be beneficial to the growth and development of job seekers and employers,” said Amer Zureikat, VP Sales, Bayt.com.

“We have a long tradition of hosting round table events with our peers to continuously add value and contribute to the betterment of the human resource ecosystem in the Middle East region. These unique initiatives use our expertise to proactively benefit Qatar’s companies and HR practices,” he added.

In addition to gauging and analyzing salary and raise levels, this year’s Bayt.com Middle East Salary Survey also looked at the respondents’ level of satisfaction with the pay rise they received.

For the most part, the region’s respondents did not receive a pay rise, with a sizeable 38 per cent missing out on a pay rise.

The best savers were also respondents in Qatar - 36 per cent of those surveyed managing to save between 16 per cent and 75 per cent of their salaries each month.

In Qatar, just 4 per cent of professionals said they were very happy with their salary increase, 7 per cent were very unhappy, 14 per cent consider themselves as unhappy, and 4 per cent agreed that their pay rise was fair given the economic circumstances.

However, professionals felt that the average salary increase did not reflect the rise in the cost of living in any of the surveyed countries.

Overall, professionals across the Middle East felt that the cost of living had increased by 24.6 per cent, yet the average salary increased by just 7.6 per cent - more than two thirds less.

In Qatar respondents felt the cost of living had increased by 20.6 per cent, while salaries had increased by just 7.4 per cent.

“This is a clear indication as to why HR practitioners and professionals alike need firm measures and benchmarks such as those provided by the annual Bayt.com Salary Survey analysis and Bayt.com’s new online salary tool to gauge market levels and trends before setting internal salary levels,” said Zureikat.

“These roundtables hosted by Bayt.com – lend themselves to being deep, informative, firmly locally oriented and to look beyond the obvious,” he added.

Zeina Kassab, HR manager – Nestle Qatar Trading, said: “It was a very good opportunity to network with other reputable companies and check their way of doing business point of view.”

“The employer’s round table event has been very informative in general and good to understand the local trend considering you had Qatari invitees,” said Mukund Joshi, operations manager – Proscape.

“As the Middle East’s leading online business and recruitment intelligence platform, we welcome the opportunity to network with new and existing employers in Qatar and present an overview of what the market sentiments are and importantly promote useful dialogues that provide perspectives about the very latest pan-regional trends to proactively benefit Qatar,” added Zureikat.

“We received a very positive response from top employers in Qatar at this event and plan to hold many more best-practice sharing regional forums in the near future,” he concluded. – TradeArabia News Service