Steps to provide equal opportunities among job-seekers

MUSCAT: The Youth and Human Resources Committee of Majlis Ash’shura on Tuesday hosted Shaikh Nasr bin Amer al Hosni, Under-Secretary for Labour at the Ministry of Labour, and Sayyid Salim bin Musallam al Busaidy, Under-Secretary for Human Resources Development at the Ministry of Labour, and a number of officials at the ministry, to discuss expressed desires under study by the committee.

The expressed desires included amending the standards of candidacy for the announced job vacancies in the public and the private sectors, specifying the Omanisation rate at the economic diversification sectors in line with the directive of Tenth Five-Year Plan and Oman Vision 2040, specifying the working hours for women in the private sector, amending the mechanism of funding work-related training and discussing the Ministry of Labour’s decision No 97/2022 stipulating job contract for nationals occupying permanent jobs.

This came during the fifth regular meeting of the third annual session (2021-2022) of the Youth and Human Resources Committee of Majlis Ash’shura, held on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Younis bin Ali al Mantheri, head of the committee.

The proposal referred to the currently applied mechanism of employment which is based on the seniority principle rather than the principle of efficiency and equality. It underscored the importance of considering the human aspect of job-seekers, pointing that the current employment mechanism excludes fresh graduates.

The ministry’s specialists referred to the mechanism followed by the ministry in sorting out applications for job vacancies in the public and private sectors. They explained the seniority criterion in general and stipulating a specific age for job-seekers to fill the announced vacancies in particular, explaining the results of this mechanism in achieving the principle of equal opportunities among job-seekers.

The officials discussed the ministry’s policy in developing national human resources through training, qualification and financial cost in general, focusing on the ministry’s work-related training policy and its results with regard to the mechanism for choosing the principle of seniority to fill job vacancies.