MORE EXPATS THAN OMANIS HIRED LAST YEAR: CBO

Expat employment grew by 9.3 per cent in 2016 while there was only a 6.4 per cent increase in the numbers of Omanis landing jobs in the private sector.

Government sector expat employment also grew by 5.6 per cent dwarfing national employment growth of just 0.6 per cent – but the government sector already has 85 per cent Omanisation.

“In the private sector, the employment of expats rose by 9.3 per cent as compared to a rise of 6.4 per cent for employment of Omanis in 2016,” the CBO annual report stated.

“The employment generation in the public sector remained subdued and grew by 1.6 per cent in 2015 (as against a growth of 7.0 per cent in 2014), with employment of Omanis increasing by 0.9 per cent and that of expatriates by 5.6 per cent,” the report added.

The Omanisation drive has picked up pace in recent years as Oman battles to diversify away from its dependence on oil and gas. The Minister of Commerce and Industry warned that ‘companies not adhering to the Omanisation quota will find themselves unwelcome at the ministry’.

Experts and company bosses believe compensation packages and the skills gap still need to be addressed, especially at mid-level positions.

“One of the reasons for hiring more expats can be the availability of the right set of skills, quali- fications and experience that they possess. This is likely to change in 2017 and we expect more Omanis to be hired. We expect companies to resize themselves, increase efficiency and maintain Omanisation quotas better by 2018,” Shashwar Al Balushi, CEO at Oman Society of Contractors said.

“We try to maintain Omanisation quota as much as possible, however, we hear from a lot of contractors that they need more unskilled workers to do the job. It is impossible to find Omanis for that so expat employment is on the rise there. However, at skilled level we have seen more Omani engineers and supervisors being hired,” Maaz Firdous, Consultant at Al Iskaan Engineering said.