CHALLENGES FACED BY HUMAN CAPITAL WITH REFERENCE TO LABOR MARKET IN OMAN

Abstract

This study is focused on the Omani youth, who are facing the challenges against unemployment opportunities. Oman is an Oil rich country and is advanced in terms of infrastructure and education standards. The crime rate is very minimal, and the Sultanate is very keen towards the economic and social growth and development of its nationals. However, a crash in the Oil prices, the main source of revenue on which the nation depended upon lost grounds and focus changed on sectors other than ‘oil and gas’ for a sustainable development. Apparently, the population and education standards have seen a steady rise over the period which questions the labor force about their work readiness, the citizens’ attitude towards public and private sector opportunities which imposes a threat to income thereby joining the unemployment cadre in the country. The Government’s role towards achieving the vision and mission, the nation is observing ways to diversify its revenue generation schemes, raising education standards to international levels, reforming private sector, and replacing imported workers (expats for skilled and unskilled work) with Omanis, encouraging small and medium entrepreneurs, etc., to deal with the problem of unemployment. The study is based on secondary data through various research papers, journals, and government reports to study the rate of unemployment, causes behind this problem and the Government measures and major reforms to address its labor market conditions prevalent in the economy.

The details and facts in this paper are systematically arranged to benefit the policy makers, economists, researchers, academicians for a comparative study of Oman with other economies and readers who share common interests in these topics.

Keywords: Challenges; Human-capital; unemployment; Labor Market