1.4%
Unemployment rate
Muscat sits 1 of 11 here, and on this table the lower number is the better one.
Back to Muscat
Muscat · Topic file
Can Muscat turn projects into real jobs and real firms?
If the strategy does not eventually show up in jobs, firms and a thicker base of local businesses, it is not really a strategy yet — it is still a slide. For Muscat, the honest read comes down to unemployment rate and establishments.
125,964
Establishments
That puts Muscat at 1 of 11 on the official table.
1,024,175
Workers in establishments
That puts Muscat at 1 of 11 on the official table.
The numbers
Where Muscat stands today, chart by chart
Unemployment rate
Total unemployment rate by governorate in 2025.
NCSI Statistical Year Book 2026, Table 25-4.
Establishments
Number of establishments by governorate in 2025.
NCSI Statistical Year Book 2026, Table 12-9.
Workers in establishments
Workers attached to governorate establishments in 2025.
NCSI Statistical Year Book 2026, Table 12-9.
The trend over time
How Muscat got here
Unemployment rate
How unemployment has moved at the governorate level. The machine-readable open data runs through 2021; the 2024 and 2025 points are pulled from the printed yearbooks.
2020–2021 from the NCSI open-data unemployment layer (by governorate). 2024 and 2025 from Table 25-4 of the Statistical Year Books 2025 and 2026.
Establishments
How many businesses are actually registered in the governorate. A simple way to see whether the local business base is thickening or thinning.
2023 and 2024: Table 12-9, Statistical Year Book 2025 (Issue 53). 2025: Table 12-9, Statistical Year Book 2026 (Issue 54).
Reading the charts
What the latest tables are really saying
- Muscat is showing 1.4% on unemployment rate. Muscat sits 1 of 11 here, and on this table the lower number is the better one.
- Muscat is showing 125,964 on establishments. That puts Muscat at 1 of 11 on the official table.
- Muscat is showing 1,024,175 on workers in establishments. That puts Muscat at 1 of 11 on the official table.
- MOHUP's Urban Strategy 2040 positions Muscat as a world-class, cosmopolitan and sustainable capital built around compact growth, public transport, business services, tourism, and a stronger metropolitan core. Without a thicker base of firms and a healthier job market, the rest is just a description on a slide.
Why this file matters
The strategy Muscat is being measured against
The jobs and businesses that show whether the governorate has a working economy, or just a project list.
MOHUP's Urban Strategy 2040 positions Muscat as a world-class, cosmopolitan and sustainable capital built around compact growth, public transport, business services, tourism, and a stronger metropolitan core.
- Ghala is meant to emerge as a new central business district for Muscat.
- The strategy explicitly calls for denser development around public transport nodes and a broader shift away from pure private-car dependence.
- Finance, trade, hospitality and tourism remain the core city-economy functions in the official spatial role.
Related topic files
Five more ways into the Muscat execution map
These linked files cover the other live tests in the same governorate, so the numbers on capital, jobs, services, tourism, utilities, and urban buildout can be read together instead of in isolation.
Muscat topic file
Capital deployment
How much money is actually being committed, and whether the property market is picking up the signal.
Muscat topic file
Urban buildout and housing
Population, permits and whether the place is actually being built fast enough for the role it has been handed.
Muscat topic file
Tourism and place economy
Hotels, occupancy, and whether the place is becoming a real destination or just adding rooms.
Muscat topic file
Human capability and essential services
Whether schools and hospitals are keeping up — the simplest read on whether people can build a life here.
Muscat topic file
Infrastructure and utilities
Roads, water and the quiet base layer that usually decides whether any of the rest of it actually works.