As troubles in Libya continue in with yesterday’s killing of US ambassador Chris Stevens, the managing director of Michael Page Africa tells Recruiter that the company’s relative lack of interest in the country is not down to security questions.

Paul Mercier says that while he is “not sure” whether 12 September’s crisis would have an impact on business confidence and operations in the country, the main reason his firm is not so heavily concentrating on the country is that “historically it’s a small country, with a very, very small population… with no civil, ambitious politicians to spend money to develop the country”.

Libya’s population is just under 6.5m. Michael Page Africa has permanent bases in South Africa and Morocco, as well as smaller offices in Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia and a base in Paris, while the wider group has over 164 offices in 34 countries.

“It’s a small market so you’ll never set up a Michael Page remote office just to serve this kind of market,” says Mercier, especially given that “we are not back to what was on before the revolution”.

“Historically there was not a consumer market, no business in distribution, imports,” Mercier adds, saying that while there has been some attempts at growth in property, hospitality and tourism markets of late, as well as civil engineering, oil & gas has always been the major industry.

In the future though he suggests that “reconstruction will be big”, and that with an overall “lack of nationals with professional education in all disciplines”, there will be opportunities for foreign nationals, but “I don’t think it’s comparable to what happened in any way in the Gulf or in Saudi”.