PR industry embraces flexible working, but work remains on gender equality – 2022 PRCA MENA Census

PR industry embraces flexible working, but work remains on gender equality – 2022 PRCA MENA Census

Dubai – Nine out of ten (90%) PR and communications professionals in Middle East and North Africa adopted some form of flexible working in 2022, according to the new PRCA MENA PR and Communications Census.

The data tells a story of an industry growing increasingly comfortable with flexible working. The most requested arrangements in 2022 were flexible start and finish times (52%), contracted number of hours per week/ ability to accrue time off (30%) and additional holiday (19%). In comparison, less than 50% of respondents used a flexible working arrangement in 2021.

The research also reveals the scale of work still needed to bridge the gap in gender equality in MENA. When asked to rate the industry’s approach to promoting women to leadership positions, the combined pick rate of ‘good’ and ‘very good’ reduced from 52% in 2021 to 39% in 2022.

Other key findings:

There has been a 25% increase in the number of practitioners that now work remotely full-time.

62% of respondents received a pay rise. Breaking this figure down by gender reveals largely similar results; 63% of men and 60% of women reported a pay rise.

Last year, only 9% of men reported having had a mental health illness and 30% of women