Nearly 200 expatriate employees, currently stranded abroad due to government restrictions on arrival of passengers from 34 countries, are receiving their monthly salaries credited to their bank accounts in Kuwait.
The 196 employees, who work for government oil sector companies, are reported to have received over KD1.2 million in salaries for the three months of April, May and June.
Salaries of employees in the oil sector are protected by legal provision and legislation that require the employer to pay the worker wages on time and in full without any reductions except in mutually agreed situations. Accordingly, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) and its subsidiary companies are legally bound to the employees’ salaries, irrespective of whether they are in the country or not.
A breakup of the 196 employees shows that 10 are employed by Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (administrative building); 121 work for Kuwait Oil Company, including 67 doctors and medical support team members in Al-Ahmadi Hospital. In addition, 49 workers are employed by Kuwait National Petroleum Company; four work for Kuwait Oil Tanker Company; two are employed with Petroleum Chemical Industry Company; three with International Petroleum Company; three with Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company; and four are employed by Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company. Kuwait Gulf Oil Company is an outlier among KPC subsidiaries in not having any expatriate employees stranded outside Kuwait.
Of the total KD1.2 million paid out as salaries to the expatriates, the highest amount of KD820,000 was from Kuwait Oil Company, followed by KD280,000 from Kuwait National Petroleum Company. Oil sector sources say that terminating the stranded employees is in most cases not feasible as many of them are in specialized, professional or technical jobs.