The number of expats in the labor market has shown a sharp decrease from June 2019 to June 2020, against a slight increase in the number of citizens, which reached 7908 Kuwaitis, according to statistics reported by Al Qabas daily.
This could be attributed to the Kuwaitization efforts by many Government sectors, and limit on recruiting new expat workers. Also many commercial businesses are suffering due to consequences of the measures of the Covid-19 pandemic, and had to pass mass layoffs among their workforce and cut their business activities to cope with their financial responsibilities.
According to the statistics of the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM), approximately 81,000 expats left the labor market, including 37,000 domestic workers, while statistics for non-domestic workers show that more than 43,000 expats of only 8 nationalities left the labor market.
During this period, the Bangladeshi community increased by nearly two thousand workers, as well as the Jordanian community by more than 510 workers. The biggest decline of workers in the labor market was the Indian community, by more than 28,000, followed by the Egyptian community, from which more than 5,000 left, and then the Nepalese, with a drop of nearly 3,000, then the Filipinos. This was followed by the Pakistanis, after them the Iranians and finally the Syrians.
With regard to the domestic labor sector, the sector witnessed in the same period a decline of more than 37,000 workers, 35% belonging to the Indian nationality, and about 11,000 Bangladeshi, 5,000 Sri Lankan, and nearly the same number from the Ethiopian community, as well as the Nepalese community, and two thousand from the Ivory coast. Coming next was a thousand Filipinos and the same from Madagascar. The Pakistanis was ahead of the list of the top 10 nationalities that have employment as domestic workers, and Benin entered the next spot with 2,281 domestic workers, while the total employment in homes reached 724,432 expats.
Distribution of number of departures from the labor market
- 28,244 Indians
- 5088 Egyptians
- 2,640 Nepalese
- 2588 – Filipinos
- 2271 Pakistanis
- 474 Iranians
- 418 Syria
Domestic Workers
- 13,000 Indians
- 10593 Bangladeshis
- 4747 Sri Lankans
- 4,531 Ethiopians
- 4,786 Nepalese
- 1678 from Ivory Coast
- 871 Filipinos
- 870 from Madagascar