Expat numbers in Oman drop by 80,000 in four months

Business Saturday 08/August/2020 16:35 PM
By: Times News Service
Expat numbers in Oman drop by 80,000 in four months

Muscat: Nearly 80,000 expatriate workers have left Oman over the past four months, according to figures released by the government.
According to data from the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), there has been a decrease of about 79,000 expatriates between the months of March and June 2020.
This is, in large part, due to many foreign nationals choosing to leave the Sultanate and make use of the repatriation efforts made by their governments, as well as airline operators, to return home during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The number of expatriates dropped steadily between March and April: At the end of March 2020, Oman had 1,936,830 expats living and working in the country, compared to 1,920,157 foreign nationals at the end of April, pointing to a decrease of upward of 16,500 non-Omanis.
It was a similar situation when the months of April and May were compared: the number of expatriates in Oman dropped from 1,920,260, to 1,895,986, which means nearly 25,000 expats left the country in the span of a single month.
Between the months of May and June, 2020, the number of expatriates in Oman fell by nearly 37,500, from 1,895,986 foreign nationals at the end of May, to 1,858,516 on the final day of June.
The decline in expat numbers corresponds to the number of repatriation, chartered and special flights set up to take foreign nationals home from Oman. Countries such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Philippines have organised repatriation flights for their citizens in Oman, while airlines operating in the country have organised flights at regular intervals to fly passengers to countries in Europe, Africa and South East Asia.
NCSI numbers for expatriate workers in the country also reflect that while Bangladeshis continue to make up the largest expat community in the country, their numbers have fallen significantly since March of this year. At the end of March 2020, there were 613,942 Bangladeshi nationals in Oman. By June, that number had fallen to 590,748: a decrease of about 23,000 people.
Similarly, the number of Indian nationals in the country declined from 596,009 to 567,341 during the same period, corresponding to a decrease of nearly 29,000 expatriates from India. There was also a corresponding decrease in the number of overseas Pakistanis in Oman, from 202,718 to 192,676, or a drop of slightly above 10,000 expats from Pakistan.
These three major expat groups aside, the number of Filipinos in the country has decreased slightly from 48,541 in March to 47,537, reflecting a drop of about 1,000 people from the Philippines. There has also been a decrease in the number of other expatriate nationalities, such as those from Sri Lanka, Uganda, Nepal and Egypt, to name a few, during the aforementioned period.
The NCSI record of expat and Omani workers employed in the country includes those working in both the private and public sector, as well as people employed by households in Oman.
“Employees in the government sector refers to individuals working in all government establishments,” said the centre. “Employees in private sector means individuals working in establishments owned by one individual or more, which have been established for profit, in which case, these should have a commercial registration and the municipality permit for the purpose of earning money.
“Employees in the household sector means individuals working with families and others who work on their own accord,” added the NCSI.