12,000 more jobs in the pipeline for nationals

Muscat: The Ministry of Labour is making unremitting efforts to provide job opportunities for citizens.

Stating this, a top official from the Ministry of Labour, said: “At the beginning of this year, we announced the intention to provide 32,000 job opportunities in the public and private sectors. By the end of the first quarter, the ministry was able to provide 10,000 jobs, of which 4,051 jobs were in the units of the state’s administrative apparatus by replacing and creating new financial degrees.”

The ministry has succeeded in providing 1,330 jobs in the Ministry of Health; 2,469 in the Ministry of Education; 115 in the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation, and 92 at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences, and other government institutions.

In addition, 51 job opportunities were generated in companies and institutions which fall under the supervision of the Public Services Authority, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, and others.

The ministry also set its sights on providing 12,000 jobs through replacement and employment in the private sector, 8 per cent of which are managerial positions, specialists and technicians. Its efforts have resulted in the appointment of 3,010 citizens in the sector for the first time at the end of last March, including 677 citizens with a qualification below a General Education Diploma, 909 citizens holding a GED and its equivalent, 390 citizens with university diplomas 1,011 with university degrees, and 23 with Master’s and Doctoral degrees, the report said.

EXPAT NUMBERS

Meanwhile, the expatriate workforce in the country has declined by 12.2 percent to 1.4 million by the end of April, according to data published by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).

It further says that as many as 40,500 workers were in the government sector, a fall of 23 percent compared to the same period last year, while 1.1 million workers work in the private sector and 252,000 workers in the family sector.

The report suggests a decline in the number of job-seekers until April this year. The electronic census data for 2020 showed that the number of job-seekers at the end of last December

stood at 65,400 of whom 24,559 were males and 40,879 were females.

At the educational level, about 108 job-seekers are illiterate, 276 can read and write, 8,000 qualify for the general diploma, 22,000 have a higher education diploma, and 24,000 hold a Bachelor’s diploma or higher.