The salaries in the Gulf region skirted the international financial downturn and the economic impact of the Arab spring over the past year, the "2012 Gulf Business Salary Survey" conducted by Gulfbusiness.com. showed.

As the region’s economy recovery continues apace, the sales and marketing managers are bringing home the highest salaries in 2012, earning an average monthly wage of $ 11,560, the survey said.

The survey of Middle East jobs was done taking the average salary for the Western, Asian and Arab expats across different sectors in the Gulf countries during the first quarter of 2012.

The human resources managers were taking home the second highest salaries in the Gulf region at around $ 11,468.6 per month, it added.

However, the survey found that HR was the only industry that witnessed a dramatic average salary drop year-on-year, with companies scaling back the function of HR departments.

In her comments, Alicia Buller, the editor of gulfbusiness.com, pointed said the employment in the Middle East had largely mapped the upward fate of the GCC economy.

"Although HR managers earn the second highest salaries in the region at around $ 11,468.6 per month, human resources was the only industry that witnessed a dramatic average salary drop year-on-year," she noted.

As a result, expatriate HR managers in the UAE, saw their wages slashed by 37 percent, she added.

Christo Daniels, managing director of recruiter Morgan McKinley, said the roles like organizational design, payroll and recruitment were all represented in HR headcount, but now have been rolled into one HR generalist role.

Explaining the dramatic decline, Christo said "the market has corrected itself. So we’re back to pre-2008 salary levels for those in the HR sector."

Supporting a recent survey by Gulf Business, which saw CEO’s salaries in Saudi Arabia topping the salaries list, this again is the case across all of the sectors where Saudi comes out on top.

The survey said Qatar witnessed the highest growth in salaries mainly in the construction and interior design sector.

The creative directors witnessed a 32 percent jump in their monthly salaries as Qatar starts laying the foundations for the next decade of growth, it added.

Another report on "The Oil & Gas Global Salary Guide 2012", Hays recruiting experts said IN the oil and gas sector, employer’s confidence in the current employment market has seen a large increase in comparison to last year’s results, with the ’very positive’ share up to 26.7 percent from last year’s 9.7 percent.

While the majority of regions were experiencing solid growth this time last year, the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea markets were still shaking off the effects of the recession, which consequently weighed down the overall average. Since the start of 2011, those markets came on line from a hiring perspective and this removed any negative sentiment in the market.

A huge 73.5 percent of the market is either positive or very positive. (Again it is worth noting that data was taken in the 3rd quarter of 2011, before the market experienced any negative sentiment.)

With regards to where individuals believe their operational focus will be in 2012, the Middle East again leads the way, although the percentage is down slightly in comparison to last year’s figures. A number of other regions followed this trend with only the North American and European markets showing an increase. This appears to be in line with the comments in previous sections regarding the pick up in activity in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea.

The hotspots around the world which saw significant salary rises included Brazil, Australia, China and Iraq. All were driven by huge projects underway, which added further pressure to the already stretched skill pool. Regionally, West Africa had a good year, as did South East Asia, Northern Europe (including Poland) and North America. The breakdown of figures noted an increase in those countries that actively encourage hiring local nationals. This took the form of significant increases in local pay whilst the imported figure remained relatively steady. Such examples included Saudi Arabia, Oman, Brazil and Venezuela.

The list of those countries importing skills at a lower cost to the local market rates have grown markedly since last year and now includes the UK, Norway, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Brunei, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and Brazil. All sought to reduce their cost base by importing lower cost options from overseas.