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Some 200,000 expats leave Oman as country wrestles with rising unemployment
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The Coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices last year drove the exodus
Some 200,000 foreign workers left Oman in a year as the coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices dealt a blow to Omani economy, and the country now wrestles with rising joblessness among its young population.
Arab News reported on Wednesday, quoting the Ministry of Finance that expatriates employed in the government went down. “It fell from 53,332 to 49,898. While expatriates employed in the private sector dropped from 1,608,781 to 1,403,287.”
The population in the oil-rich Gulf region declined by about 4 percent last year amid an exodus of expatriates due to the coronavirus pandemic and lower oil prices, S&P Global Ratings has estimated.
This was partly caused by the economic downturn, and partly to workforce nationalization policies which gained traction after the coronavirus outbreak.
Early in the pandemic, Oman — where youth unemployment is now over 10 percent — ordered state firms to replace foreign employees with nationals to ease pressure on the job market. Oman’s ruler Sultan Haitham promised last week, on a third day of rare demonstrations in several towns and cities, to create 32,000 jobs and subsidize private companies that take on Omanis, despite pledged cuts in public spending as part of an austerity plan.
Oman posted a deficit of 827 million rials ($2.15 billion) in the four months to April, with revenues declining by 27.7 percent annually during the period. Net oil revenue was down by 36.8 percent, “due to lower oil production in compliance to OPEC plus agreement, low oil price and persisting consequences of COVID-19 which have adversely affected economic growth and public finance,” the ministry was quoted by Arab News. Public spending during the four months to April declined by 2.7 percent year on year.