MUSCAT : Oman provided almost 10,000 jobs during the first quarter of the current year.

In an interview with Oman TV, Minister of Labour Dr. Mahad bin Said bin Ali Ba’owain said: “According to the directives of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik to provide jobs for Omanis, the Ministry of Labour announced in January 2021 that 32,000 jobs would be provided to job seekers as per the implementation of the plan.”

“During the past three months, we were able to provide between 9,800 and 10,000 new jobs to Omanis.”

“About 4,000 job opportunities were given in the government sector and tests were conducted for them, and about 4,000 Omanis job seekers gained employment for the first time, while another 2,000 got other job opportunities coupled with training,” he explained.

“With this number, we have achieved in the first quarter of 2021 almost 30 per cent of the 32,000 job opportunities that were previously announced,” the minister said.

He said there are about 1,500,000 expatriates working in the country, only 10 per cent of them are replaceable, while the rest of the jobs are low paying ones where we cannot pressure employers to replace expatriates with Omanis.

“So with this 10 per cent, we can have 140,000 to 200,000 job opportunities for which we can replace expatriates with Omanis, and the replacement process involves training, qualification and experience for some jobs, so we need time to do that and we will work hard to achieve this,” the minister added, pointing out that efficiency and sincerity at work are qualities present among Omanis, but some jobs require specific expertise and skills.

“We also put pressure on the public and private sectors to replace expatriates with Omanis, and we inform them that we are ready to provide for any qualification or training required for this replacement,” he said.