Muscat: More Omanis are going to lose their job by the contracting companies in the oil and gas fields, amid the slump of the oil prices.
536 Omani workers at the Ardiseis Company that works in oil excavation are expected to be laid-off by the end of this month after they received an official note from the company itself.
The workers asked government agencies to help them find new jobs.
“My contract still has 10 more months on it,” Nasser Al Mamar, an oil sector employee told Gulf News.
“I shouldn’t be fired before my contract ends, its illegal,” he said.
“I have a family to feed, a house loan to pay and a house under construction,” he said.
Many other Omanis are in similar situations.
In October, at least 881 Omanis were laid off by contracting companies in Oman, just two months after the slump in oil prices.
Many of those laid off were engineers and technicians.
Companies have been asked to provide laid-off workers with alternative jobs, according to Saud Al Salmi, president of a labour union representing oil and gas employees.
The union also demanded compensation for sacked workers.
In November, the ministerial committee tasked with finding a solution to the mass layoffs of Omanis in the country’s oil and gas sector told companies to fire expatriates first.
Oil and gas unions threatened to go on strike on November 18, the country’s national day, to protest the lay-offs but later called it off.
There are more than 20,000 Omanis working in the oil and gas sector. There are also 25 operating trade unions in the sector.
