any kind of IT work for an EXPAT

Hi George,

Welcome to Expat.com!

I also invite you to post an advert in the jobs in Muscat section.

Thank you,
Christine

George

The problem with finding I.T work in Oman below that of a manager is that it is dominated predominantly by ex-pats from the Indian sub continent and far East who are cheaper to employ than someone from Europe or the USA.

When looking to employ a non Omani  there is invariably the problem of getting clearance from the Ministry of Man Power to employ that person and this can take time depending on the influence of your potential employer and you may find yourself working semi legally whilst the application for clearance is being undertaken.

This may mean you coming in on a tourist visa (currently 20 OMR) for a month, renewing it at the airport, then leaving Oman by air for the day on a day trip up to the UAE. You can only renew your tourist visa once after a month for another month before having to leave but there appears to be no restriction on the number of times you can do this.

But you may very well get questioned by immigration.

QFB, if you have not read the entire post then please do not respond, as you have told me nothing that I already do not know. I am not meaning to come off like a jerk, just trying to state that I already know everything you have told me. I have pretty much given up on trying to get back to Oman.

George, QFB did his best to help. Please respect that

George!
If you know everything, then you better should keep it with you and do not post anything here as noone is interested. This forum is basically to help the people.
Do whatever you want to, but keep that with you as it impacts noone. So why don't you just gather yourself and ask a RELEVANT question, instead of informing us those non-interesting informations.

George

Whilst most people would not deign to respond to your somewhat trite and impertinent reply I will nonetheless put it down to it being a severe case of the Monday morning blues.

I did read the post and had worked on the premiss that it was sometime since you had been in Oman and felt it only fair to warn you about the hassle you will face at the moment if you decided to return to Oman to look for work,considering that you will be traveling from the US and no doubt dependent on living off your savings etc whilst looking for work.

Also, please bear in mind that others who do not have the benefit of your experience with regards to Oman read posts such as this and thus glean what information they can from contributors some of whom have been in the Middle East for over 30 years.

You asked about Omanisation .

As a result of the Arab Spring the Omani authorities have become more conscious of the fact that a significant number of the population are aged from 15 to 25 and are in need of employment if they are to avoid civil unrest,which has happened such as in Salalah and Suhar .

All companies are required to have a percentage of employees who are Omanis and can be fined for failing to make their quota and the quota is allocated across the entire spectrum of the work force.

Also, if you fail to make the quota it can impact upon expanding the workforce and in turn impact upon the commercial viability of your company and sometimes you need to have an Omani in place before you can recruit an ex-pat as you now have to have one Omani for every ex-pat and if that is not bad enough the Min of Man Power is in the process of changing the rules.



In addition : You & others,also need to understand the process that an employer has to follow in order to employ an ex-pat,hence my explanation with regards to the application to the Min of Man Power for clearance which is just permission to recruit. Once clearance is obtained and a candidate selected they and their credentials are forwarded to the Ministry for approval after which time the residence permit is granted.

This process has not changed.

What you may not be-aware of is that every company is categorized whereby they are either granted automatic clearance such as the likes of Oman Tel or Nawras, then there are those who need to justify there request such as Galfar, & lastly the no hopers.

Thus, if you still want to look at Oman to work in you need to concentrate your search on the likes of Nawras,Telecom Regulatory authority,the electricity generation & distribution companies.

There is another way to get the clearance and that is to get an Omani to sponsor you directly so avoiding the visa run hassle but when you find your I.T job you will then need to get a release from your sponsor in order to work for the new employer but there is a away around that.

At the moment, there are several major civil engineering projects in the Sultanate  that could be potential employers for you.

BP :

If all of the above is too onerous then I suggest you look at the UAE and use the UAE as a jumping off point to Oman.

All the Best