MUSCAT: Efforts and initiatives undertaken by the Ministry of Labour have resulted in the employment of 23,200 job-seekers (10,400 in the public and 12,800 in the private sector) in the first half of this year.
According to data published by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), the number of nationals who were employed by the public and the private sectors and obtained insurance exceeded 15,000 by the end of July bringing the total number of insured national employees to 282,000.
The replacement plan adopted by the Ministry of Labour has led to a fall in expat number in the public sector to 29,800 by the end of July from 37,900 by end-2021. However, the number of expat workers in the private sector reached 1.267 million up from the figure of 1.131 million registered by the end of 2021.
Earlier, the ministry announced a plan to provide 35,000 job opportunities this year in various economic sectors. A total of 8,479 job opportunities have been provided by the end of August this year as a result of employment initiatives at various economic sectors. This includes 5,000 job opportunities provided by the Sahem initiative, 2,230 job opportunities provided by the Wage Support Initiative, and 1,249 job opportunities provided by the One Million Hours Initiative which secured a total of 919,150 working hours.
The Tenth Five-Year Development Plan includes a comprehensive employment strategy that utilizes a database and studies for analyzing the current situation to provide a sustainable employment strategy with short- and long-term goals based on educational and training programmes that are compatible with the needs of the labour market.
