53,332 expats employed in Oman's government sector

Muscat: 155,000 expatriates, holding university degrees and spread across three nationalities, are employed in both Oman’s private and government sectors, and constitute 84 per cent of the total expatriate workforce.

68 per cent of these expats are employed in three governorates. According to monthly statistical bulletin for the month of April issued by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), revealed that 53,332 expatriates worked in the government sector until the end of March, with the total number of foreign workers in the country standing at 1,321,753 workers.

According to the centre, “employees in the government sector means individuals working in all government establishments. Employees in the private sector refers to individuals working in establishments owned by one individual or more, which they established for profit, and in which case, the establishments should have a commercial registration and a municipality permit for the purpose of trading.”

NCSI data indicated that there are 152,000 workers who have university degrees, ranging from diploma to doctorate qualifications, working in the two sectors. Among them, 46,995 were diploma holders, while university graduates made up another 76,872 workers. Higher diploma qualifications were held by 3,826 workers, 4,752 workers had masters’ degrees, and 2,521 had doctorate-level qualifications.

In terms of which sectors employed the maximum numbers of expatriate workers in Oman, the number of expats working across basic engineering and auxiliary professions amounted to about 669,000 workers, public administration and business fielded another 35,000 workers, employees in the scientific and humanitarian fields provided jobs for another 47,000 expat workers.

In addition, 48,000 are working as technicians in scientific and technical companies. The rest are distributed across clerical occupations, sales, services, agriculture, animal husbandry, birds, fishing, occupations of industrial and chemical processes, and in food industries.


The governorates of Muscat, Northern Al Batinah, and Dhofar are the three where most expat workers are present, standing at about 1,132,000 workers, which constitutes 68 per cent of the total number of expatriates working in the private sector, who numbered 662,113 employees until the end of March 2020.

As of March 2020, the population of Oman stood at 4,645,249, of which Omanis accounted for 58.3 percent of people, and expatriates the remaining 41.7 percent. Bangladeshis, with 613,942 people in Oman, form the country’s biggest expatriate community, while Indians, at 596,009, come in second. There are also 202,718 expats from Pakistan in Oman.

There are also 48,541 Filipinos, 34,548 Egyptians, 22,958 Sri Lankans, 16,674 Ugandans, 16,116 Nepalese, and 15,395 people from Tanzania who live and work in the Sultanate.