Oman’s Ministry of Oil and Gas is to recruit between 20,000 and 30,000 skilled local workers over the next decade, according to the under-secretary of the Ministry of Oil and Gas.
To achieve this, the ministry has identified some key skills and abilities and is planning to set up two institutes besides liaising with technical institutes in the country and is planning to mould school children to be better oil and gas sector employees in the future.
“We will be in need of some 20,000 to 30,000 local workforce with specialised skills such as electrical engineering and mechanical engineering in the next 10 years and the majority of them will be recruited locally. In order to achieve this, we are setting up two institutes — one in Adam and the second in Muscat,” Salim bin Nasser al Aufi, Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Oil and Gas, said.
He was speaking to the media on the sidelines of the inaugural Mena HR in Oil and Gas Congress being held here. The aim of such a massive demand for skilled Omani personnel is manifold, according to Al Aufi. The first one being the commitment to Omanisation whereby the ministry will be Omanising a number of technical positions currently occupied by expatriates.
The second is the additional activities coming up in the oil and gas sector. He said that the number of skilled personnel, especially in the engineering division, is growing at the oil and gas sector and while recruiting so many people in the sector, the keyword will be skills and capabilities.
“We are looking particularly at knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) and expatriates will be recruited only where there is a serious shortage of manpower and the vacancies need to be filled immediately. Additionally, we have reviewed over 260 different skills and at the moment we have shortlisted five top qualifications, including electrical, mechanical, instrumentation and drafting as part of the diploma programmes,” he said.
The ministry will also be moulding schoolchildren to be better oil and gas sector employees which forms second part of the strategy. “We are in discussions with the Ministry of Education and we are looking at various aspects of reserving some seats for schoolchildren at an early stage of their lives.”
“We have not set any target as to the proportion between Omani and expatriate workforce. However, we are going by the current Omanisation of 90 per cent and in any case the maximum target possible is 100 per cent”.
