It says something that more than 100% of Standard Chartered's retail branches are managed by Emiratis, but only 42% of its total workforce in the UAE are nationals
As we've highlighted before, it's a struggle for banks to find enough Emiratis to fill their Emiratisation targets - especially in investment banking.
New figures from Standard Chartered highlight the extent of the challenge. Whilst 100% of the bank's branches are managed by UAE Nationals, suggesting it's comparatively easy to find senior Emiratis to work in retail banking, only 42% of the bank's workforce in the UAE are Emiratis.
With the broader workforce including Standard Chartered's wholesale (investment banking) and private banking arms, it seems safe to conclude that expats make up a disproportionate amount of non-retail staff.
Standard Chartered, as much as any bank in the Middle East, is doing its best to reverse this. If runs numerous programmes to train up Emirati graduates. Notably, however, with more than half the bank's local staff being expats, it doesn't appear to have had much success so far.
