Tuesday 08 / July / 2025
Muscat: Oman plans to hire more than 32,000 nationals this year, and provide training to nearly 20,000 job seekers, as part of the Ministry of Labour’s efforts to employ more citizens.
The government also managed to save the jobs of 70,000 Omanis employed in key sectors during the pandemic, said Dr. Mahad bin Said Ba’owain, the Minister of Labour, while announcing the ministry’s plans for this year. These jobs will be achieved through both the replacement of expatriates with Omanis, and the creation of new employment opportunities brought about through economic growth and diversification.
“For the sake of overall sustainability, we also need economic plans that bear fruit three to four years after their implementation,” he said.
“As a ministry, we can achieve this in cooperation with the private sector, after which we will achieve a measure of saturation in our replacement efforts. I hope everyone is able to understand the importance of this great challenge. It is not just the Ministry of Labour that is responsible to achieve this,” added the minister. “All companies and institutions are partners with the ministry in making these plans successful, and in overcoming the current challenges, such as employment, qualifications and training. Everyone must work together to help us succeed and achieve our goals.”
As part of the ministry’s job creation drive, 7,602 jobs currently staffed by expatriates will be given to Omanis. Of these, 2,469 are in education, 830 in health, 115 in higher education, 151 in agriculture, fisheries and water resources, 65 in municipal organisations, 292 at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences, and 1,280 in other public bodies. A further 1,500 jobs at the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, and 900 at the Authority for Public Services Regulation will also be allocated to Omanis.
Of the 32,267 jobs that are to be created this year, 12,000 will be made available in the private sector. Eight percent of manager, specialist and technical roles will be nationalised under this scheme. An additional 5,202 opportunities will be set up in the government sector. 9,000 jobs will go to Omanis trained in roles related to human resources, as well as those holding the related qualifications. A further 3,265 roles will be created in the private sector under government employment programmes. The government aims to create another 2,800 jobs by the end of January 2021.
“These plans are also characterised by performance indicators, and a number of initiatives measured through accountability,” said Sayyid Salim Musallam Al Busaidi, the Undersecretary for Human Resources Development at the Ministry of Labour. “As we have 12 economic sectors and 14 priorities under Vision 2040, it is the responsibility of everyone to work towards its success. Traditional recruitment processes such as large-scale employment initiatives, cannot continue. The government’s needs for workers will be based on the actual requirements of these sectors. Each sector will need to make their requirements known to the Ministry of Labour, so that we can coordinate with them to serve the growth of these sectors.”
According to ministry data, there are about 65,438 jobseekers in the country. Of them, 24,866 are male, and the remaining 40,572 are female. 12.9 per cent (8,477 job seekers) have qualifications below that of a General Education Diploma (GED), while 33.9 per cent (22,163) hold that as their highest qualification.
16 per cent (10,497) have university diplomas, and 37.2 per cent (24,301) have university degrees. The Ministry of Labour will provide training and employment to job seekers in collaboration with a number of other government bodies.
It will train and then find employment for 3,000 Omani job seekers who have the general education diploma as their highest level of qualification, while also issuing on the job training programmes for job seekers with diploma qualifications in above, who have graduated from technical colleges and universities in the country.
In collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, the ministry will also train a further 10,000 job seekers to enhance their job skills under the Khabraat (Arabic for ‘experiences’) programme. This programme will be run and funded across all governorates of the Sultanate, and will give them the skills required to perform in today’s job market. 3,000 job seekers will receive training from the Public Authority for SME Development (Riyada), while 1,000 have been registered for training under the Etimad (accreditation) scheme. Of these, 250 received training last year, while the remaining 750 are still in the programme.
“According to performance indicators, if we achieve 80 per cent of the plan’s targets, we will have achieved success,” said Ba’owain. We will work to complete all these initiatives during this year, achieve success, and then build on them for 2022 and the years that follow.”
