GCC agency talent chiefs report hiring freezes and Saudi retention strain.

Talent leaders at GCC agency groups describe a market of frozen or selective hiring as clients cut budgets. MCN MENAT's talent chief says keeping strong Saudi staff is the hardest part, because clients hire them away.

Communicate published the interviews on 25 and 26 October; they were recorded earlier, while it researched its 2026 GCC Advertising & Marketing Salary Survey. Ricarda Ruecker, chief talent officer at MCN MENAT, said the regional situation has hit the GCC and Lebanon, with clients reducing spend and cutting marketing budgets. "I think everybody has more or less a hiring freeze," she said, adding that MCN still has some recruitment under way and has avoided major redundancies so far. Finding people is "not difficult at all" at the moment, she said.

Keeping them is another matter. Ruecker said MCN now employs many Saudi nationals, but holding on to good ones for more than two years is hard because clients recruit them, and that media and advertising is "not yet the most attractive" sector for Saudis. A Saudi copywriter is among the hardest roles to fill. At Incubeta MENA, people director Chelly Megale called hiring "selective", focused on data, measurement and AI engineering roles, and said recruiters describe the UAE and Saudi markets as "really, really quiet". She said AI has not removed any role at Incubeta.

Neither interview gives headcount or pay figures, which sit in Communicate's survey, and the views come from two groups that may not speak for smaller or independent agencies.

The pressure sits on top of Saudi Arabia's Saudization rules for marketing jobs. Since April, firms with three or more staff in roles such as marketing manager, graphic designer and PR specialist must fill 60% of them with Saudis, according to the human resources ministry via Arab News. Agencies in Riyadh competing with brands for the same pool will need better pay, progression and flexibility, or a plan to train their own.