The Salary Survey 2009 also shows that people working in Bahrain are the most optimistic about salaries with 57 percent expecting an increase in their salary.

By contrast, employees in Kuwait and the UAE are more pessimistic with 54 percent and 56 percent respectively saying they do not expect any added rewards in the next six months.

And if you work in the oil and gas or the cargo/freight industry, your expectations are much higher than those working in real estate or hospitality.

Only 27 percent of people working in the region's struggling property sector expect a pay rise, according to data collected by us during January.

The results of the Salary Survey 2009, which were based on more than 3,000 respondents from across the GCC region, follow a survey by Middle East jobs website Bayt.com in conjunction with YouGov which said there was widespread dissatisfaction about the level of salaries.

And last week a poll of Gulf companies by ORC Worldwide (Middle East) showed that 40 percent of them had already implemented or were in the process of implementing a pay freeze for some or all of their staff while 11 percent had gone a stage further and cut pay rates.