I have a backlog of things I want to blog about. I'll begin with this, which is a quick summary of a news item I found in one of the Arabic dailies (I think it was Oman newspaper) on October 19th.
According to the newspaper, this information is taken from the Ministry of National Economy monthly statistics. I have no reason to doubt them. There is no information on whether the data is based on basic salary only or full pay. It's quite reasonable to assume that in the higher pay levels, the numbers are low because of deliberate misreporting. Also, the data probably doesn't include the pay of self-employed Omanis as well as the owners and partners in businesses. Regardless of that, the figures are incredibly depressing:
In 2007 the number of Omanis employed in the government dropped from 139,000 to 133,000. Meanwhile the number of Omanis in the private sector increased to 131,000 (it increased by a further 10,000 in the first six months of 2008).
The pay distribution for Omanis in the private sector is:
Up to RO. 120 a month: 60,270 employees
RO 120-140: 20,082 employees
RO. 140-160: 17,075 employee
RO. 160-180: 7,615 employees
RO. 180-200: 5,529 employees
RO. 200-300: 14,161 employees
RO. 300-400: 6,549 employees
RO. 400-500: 3,384 employees
RO. 500-600: 2,038 employees
RO. 600-700: 1,247 employees
RO. 700-800: 813 employees
RO. 800-900: 571 employees
RO. 900-1000: 519 employees
RO. 1000-2000: 1394 employees
Salary over RO. 2000 a month: only 470 employees.
To conclude: out of 131,000 Omanis in the private sector, 110,000 of them are on pay of RO. 200 a month or less. That's about 84%.
This is why I oppose Omanisation in its current form. It is a policy that forces Omanis into the lowest paying jobs for the sake of dressing up statistics. It sounds great when the Ministry of Manpower announces that 10,000 Omanis were placed in jobs in the private sector. But the truth is that 8 out of every 10 who are employed are getting paid below 200 rials a month. And that's not much of a living.
18 comments:
M - the numbers are (lil2saf) believable and would be based on basic salary as it is the only form of "real" salary. The employer can "in theory" strip you of all your allowances. Also, only basic salaries are reported to PASI (i think)
wow - its quite shocking and relatively sad for Oman being such an oil-rich country
PS. hows the baby??? we want pics
Hasn't the government recently raised the minimum wage for Omanis in the private sector from 120 rials to 140 rials ?
I have no idea of Omanis but I knew an Indian guy who used to receive a salary of 1200 rials officially and nearly 6000 rials unofficially!
He was working in IT sector of Bank Mus.......
It's a shame, education, motivation and social network plays a big role. People tend to accept low salaries and not get promoted because of their education level, plus they don’t motivate them selves, just complain and do the work. They don't have goals in life.
Thats pretty depressing, especially that I'm currently looking for a job and focusing on the private sector.
If one was to look at the GDP per Person figures and compare them with the averaged/typical wage – in Oman and then look at Britain/USA/Germany etc I think you will find that equally interesting
What's better? More un-employment or more employment on a lower salary?
Just simply increasing the salaries doesn't help omanisation either. It is providing more poeple with jobs that does. Look at the bigger picture... not at just small little things in between.
Muscati,
Great info. You say that you don't support Omanization in its current form. What would you do differently to encourage employment at higher wage category jobs?
I think its got to be basic salary, otherwise to me its very hard to believe, based on what I've seen.
Makes you wonder how people afford all these fancy cars you see in the streets these days (well, not really, we all know the answer to that).
"Makes you wonder how people afford all these fancy cars you see in the streets these days (well, not really, we all know the answer to that)."
And that, my friends, sums up the reality of Oman.
The extra businesses, the exploitation of the alloted number of housemaid visas, the rental properties, the kickbacks, the scamming, the unofficial payments and the overall souq mentality.
Yes Oman's roads are full of fancy cars, but they are not being driven by people with sub 200 rial salaries. True, many of the owners can barely afford the cars, but there are factors that have allowed them to buy them. Namely, the real estate and stock market boom. You'd be shocked how many of those cars were bought for cold hard cash. No finance. No monthly installments.
I should put up a post about this one day.
400 rials used to be a lot of money in Muscat when I was living there. Enough for a family to support itself, assuming the company took care of their accommodation. I wonder if things like inflation and house rents have changed so much in 10 years, or if most most Asian expats are just used to living relatively expensively.
I don't think you could maintain an expat lifestyle on 400 rials a month. It would barely pay rent these days.
Would the "free land" help to raise the standard of living?
Thanks for these Salary Statistics. I would like to quote you as a reference.
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Its great to know the salary statistics. Thanks.
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These salary statistics would make good resources for related research. Thank you for these figures.
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Based from this information, then one can assume when is the best level of salary an employee can consider to move to a new house. A bigger and better salary usually means a bigger place to stay.
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