Over 50 per cent of Omanis earn less than OMR500

Muscat: Some 53 per cent of Omanis working in the private sector get monthly wages in the range of OMR325 and OMR500, according to the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
Some 133,000 of the total 251,009 Omanis in the private sector earned between OMR325 and OMR500 by the end of November. The NCSI reported that the unemployment rate for Omanis between the ages of 25 and 29 dropped 13.6 per cent over the last month.
The jobless rate for Omanis dropped by 11 per cent for those between 30 and 34 years, and by 7.1 per cent for locals from 35 to 39 years of age, as companies begin to carry out the national Omanisation policy.
According to the NCSI, of the 2,041,190 workers in the private sector, only 238,688 are Omani, with the vast majority – 87.72 per cent – being expatriates. More than 40,000 Omanis have been given jobs in private sector companies as part of the government’s Omanisation policy.
Between October 2017 and 2018, the number of expats in the labour force decreased by 3.4 per cent and currently stands at 1,739,473, down from 1,795,689 in December 2017.
The biggest drop was in the construction sector, which decreased by 13.69 per cent in October 2018. The manufacturing (5.2 per cent), engineering (6.8 per cent), industrial (5.9 per cent), mining (6.47 per cent), agriculture (1.4 per cent), and finance (2.1 per cent) sectors showed a rise in the number of Omanis replacing expat workers.
The six-month ban on hiring expat workers across 87 job roles was imposed on January 28, 2018, to make room for locals within the workforce. The hiring freeze came into effect following the issuance of ministerial decree 2018/38, which was issued by Minister of Manpower Abdullah bin Nasser Al Bakri. In July, it was extended for another six months.