MUSCAT: Over 58,000 expatriates have left the country permanently as part of the exit scheme programme in 2021, Oman’s Minister of Labour has confirmed.
Speaking to The Arabian Stories during a media interaction, His Excellency Professor Mahad Bin Said Bin Ali Baawain said 58,720 workers left the Sultanate during the grace period. “We have been actively working with various departments to eradicate illegal recruitment of labour and we have been very successful in that,” the minister noted.
Oman announced the ‘exit scheme’ in 2020 for expatriate workers with expired permits to leave the country permanently.
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Dr. Mahad also informed that the priority for the government is to create employment opportunities for 35,000 jobseekers, “as some of them will replace expatriates,” he added.
The minister affirmed that the government is doing its best to ensure the stability of youth in the labour market. “Last year we negotiated with 96 companies that expressed a desire to terminate the services of the national workforce. As a result, a total of 26161 Omanis were reinstated in their private sector jobs,” he said.
