OVER 270,000 EXPATRIATES LEFT OMAN IN 2020 DUE TO PANDEMIC

Wed 30 December 2020:

More than 270,000 expatriate workers left Oman as a result of the repercussions of the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Sultanate’s National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) announced yesterday.

“Oman’s expatriate worker population fell by more than 270,000, or nearly 16 per cent, from the end of 2019 to November 2020,” NCSI’s statement was quoted by Reuters.

The official data centre pointed out that Oman had 1.44 million foreign workers in November, down from 1.710 million at the end of 2019.

Many foreign workers left Gulf countries this year as their oil-dependent economies were simultaneously hit by the pandemic and the drop in global oil demand and prices.

The Omani government recently said it was “intensifying efforts to localise several jobs and redress the imbalance in the country’s demographics.” Since 2018, the Sultanate has been running its so-called “Omanisation” policy, which prohibits expatriates from working in 87 designated jobs.

Article originally Published in Middle East Monitor CLICK HERE

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent