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DUBAI: Driving down the number of expat workers in Oman’s private sector is “going to take a long time,” a senior official at the Ministry of Manpower said, highlighting infrastructure projects as areas where expat workers are needed.
Despite ongoing efforts to integrate more Omanis in the workforce, the ministry said the country still needs expat workers for “mega infrastructure projects.”
Expats make up almost 90 percent of Oman’s private sector workforce, which the government has been trying to reduce through its Omanization policies.
“Some professions in the private sector are Omanized and restricted to Omanis, such as administrative professions and some senior leadership positions, such as personnel managers and human resource managers. The Ministry of Manpower also issued a decision to ban the recruitment of a non-Omani labor force in some professions, as well introduced a hike in work permit fees for the expatriate labor force,” Salim bin Nasser Al Harami, Director General of Planning and Development at the Ministry of Manpower, told local daily Times of Oman.
The expatriate visa ban halted the hiring of expats to jobs across 87 sectors which include information systems, accounting and finance, sales and marketing, administration, human resources and insurance.
These efforts resulted in a two percent decline in October, which Al Hadrami said was a “a good and positive indicator.”
The National Center for Statistics & Information in Oman reported that of the 2,041,190 workers in the private sector, only 250,717 are Omanis, with the vast majority – 87.72 percent – being expatriates.
The Omanization drive aims to recruit more of local citizens in private companies — a similar push across the GCC where countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait who have also been trying to increase the number of nationals in private sector employment.