Expatriate workers across Oman are facing serious salary delays with some waiting almost a year for wages.
The hidden pay freeze is cutting across all sectors, with workers reporting salary delays in the health, the IT sector and in construction, Albawaba reported.
Under Omani law, it is illegal to withhold a worker’s salary for more than seven days after the due payment date falls.
In the current economic downturn, many companies are feeling the squeeze, while others are blaming lack of government payments for their inability to pay up.
Many workers are living off Iftar meals at mosques and find themselves unable to pay rent. Social workers say there has been a spike in the number of desperate people who, despite putting in the work, have been left penniless by their own employers.
Workers in different sectors in Oman claim salary delays ranging between five to 10 months.
A Times of Oman investigation found that hundreds of workers at a hospital in Salalah, dozens of workers in an IT company in Muscat and dozens of workers in a construction company in Ibri are struggling to make ends meet as they have not been paid for at least five months.
A senior official from the company, who has also not been paid for months, told Times of Oman, “The company is getting ample money from its customers but these people are rotating the money in shares and other investments, and they are waiting for the returns to come so they can pay us the salaries.”
A construction company worker in Ibri, who declined to be named, said that he has not received salary for eight months and is fighting a case for his wages in court.
Mohammed Khaldi, a board member of the General Federation of Oman Trade Union, said that there are several cases of salary delay coming to GFOTU.
“Delaying salary is in violation of Oman labor law and is also against humanity,” the trade union leader said.
