Muscat: As the government continues to move forward with its policies on Omanisation, nearly 35,000 expat workers have left private sector industry in 2018, according to a data revealed by the Ministry of Manpower.

Approximately 34,266 expatriate workers left the country’s private sector, according to the ministry’s annual report, with the total number standing at 1,890,573, down from 1,924,839 in 2017.

This comes after the government had imposed ban on issuing visas to expats in 87 job roles on January 2018. At the end of 2018, Oman’s private sector had provided more than 40,000 jobs to local jobseekers with a further 27,000 Omanis hired in the private sector between January and May 2019.

According to official at the Ministry of Manpower, the number of expat workers leaving private sector would only continue to drop in the coming months. “With the Omanisation drive taking effect, there will be more people (expats) leaving jobs in private sector. The plan is to give jobs to more locals in the private sector and that will continue,” he added.

Ahmed Al Hooti, head of economic research at the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the number of expat workers in the private sector would only continue to drop as Omanisation policies brought more and more locals into the workforce.