Salaries in Middle East IT sector dive by 40 per cent

Salaries in the Middle East technology sector have dropped between 20 and 40 per cent over the past year due to the global downturn and are not expected to return to previous levels until 2010, say analysts.

The sector was previously one of the best in terms of employee perks but there have been cutbacks in this area as well, they added.

"In our experience salaries for new hires have gone down by approximately 20 per cent for the same role between last year and recent months," Peter Spaans, Human Resources Manager at Hewlett Packard ME, told Emirates Business.