The Al-Shall weekly report said that the average monthly wage for Kuwaitis of both sexes in the government and private sectors was about 1,538 dinars (1,504 dinars at the end of the first quarter of 2022), while it was about 337 dinars for non-Kuwaitis (342 dinars at the end of the first quarter of 2022), noting that all these figures do not include domestic workers, which will leave a significant impact on the wage rates of non-Kuwaitis, if taken into account, nor do they include the impact of employment support given for Kuwaitis working in the private sector.
The report indicated that the number of Kuwaiti workers in the government sector was to about 373 thousand, an increase of 3% (362 thousand workers at the end of the first quarter 2022), and their number in the private sector reached about 71.7 thousand (72.7 thousand at the end of the first quarter 2022).
The report stated that the number of workers in Kuwait as at the end of the first quarter of 2023, were classified according to number, gender, nationality, wages, ages… etc., and amounted to about 2.073 million without counting the number of domestic workers, with an increase of 10% (1.885 million workers at the end of the first quarter 2022), according to the latest statistics issued by the Central Statistical Administration, which is a rise – if true – contrary to all the goals of adjusting the demographics.
The report revealed that more than a quarter of the total expatriate workers in Kuwait are domestic workers, whose number as at the end of the first quarter of 2023, according to the report of the Central Administration for Statistics, was about 780 thousand, an increase of about 27.2% (613 thousand workers at the end of the first quarter of 2022 with males accounting for about 357 thousand and the females about 423 thousand.
The report stated four nationalities, India, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, account for about 94.6% of the total number of domestic workers out of the 10 nationalities, while the other six nationalities occupy the highest 3% and the lowest 0.2%.
Al-Shall report added: “The last fiscal year 2022/2023, which ended at the end of last March, achieved an average price of a barrel of Kuwaiti oil amounting to about $97.1, and the average price of a barrel for the month of June 2023 is about 21.1% lower than the average price of a barrel for the previous fiscal year, as well as it is about $16.3 a barrel lower than the new parity price for the current budget of $92.9, according to estimates by the Ministry of Finance (before calculating the profits of independent entities), and after stopping the deduction of 10% of total revenues for the benefit of the reserve for future generations, and the parity price drops to about $87 after adding Profits of independent entities.
Al-Shall said that the stock market’s absolute liquidity declined in June compared to May, as it amounted to about 815 million dinars, down from the level of 940.8 million dinars, i.e. -13.4%. However, the average daily trading value for June, which is the most important, rose to about 47.9 million dinars, or about 17.2%, compared to the average level of that value for the month of May, which amounted to about 40.9 million dinars.
The report pointed out that the volume of stock exchange liquidity in the first half of this year (i.e. in 119 working days) was about 5.04 billion dinars, and thus the average daily trading value for the period was about 42.4 million dinars, down by -39% compared to the average daily trading value for the same period of 2018.
