A study conducted by an international agency on the Omani labour market has recommended Omanisation target of 45% in the retailing industry. Mohammed bin Abdul Hussain Al Lawati, Head of the Joint Omanisation Committee of the retail sector, said the Committee was seeking to provide 11,000 additional jobs in the retail sector by 2015.
He said that monitoring the labour market was not an easy job because the private sector operates on a completely differently work culture as compared to the public sector. He pointed out that the ministry deals with more than 134,000 establishments that employ 1,488,000 labourers, including 217,000 Omanis and 1,271,000 expatriates.
The minister added that there were two groups of companies: the first group, termed first class number, 15,000 companies that employ 600,000 expatriates and 200,000 Omanis. The second group comprising the SMEs or 4th, 3rd and 2nd class companies — totalling about 119,000 enterprises, that collectively employ 610,000 expatriates and only 10,000 Omanis.
He said the figure provided by the Ministry of Manpower was different from the one provided by the Public Authority for Social Insurance (PASI). This was due to the employment turnover, an incomplete electronic linkage system and the fact that some companies were not covered by the PASI.
The Supreme Council for Planning (SCP) and the National Centre for Statistic and Information (NCSI) were currently working on this issue.-Times of Oman
