As of the end of February 2019, Kuwait’s population stood at 4.7 million, of which 1.4 million were Kuwaitis and the remaining 3.3 million were expatriates, shows a new report on the breakup of demographics in Kuwait.
The increase in population over the last decade was 27 percent for Kuwaitis, whose numbers rose from 1.1 million in 2009 to 1.4 million by 2019. In the same time interval, the number of expatriates rose by 41 percent, from 2.34 million a decade ago to 3.3 million today.
Statistics show the number of Kuwaitis rose by 310,000 in 10 years, compared to 970,000 for expatriates. For every new Kuwaiti child born, there are almost 3 new expatriates.
The increase in the number of expatriates can be attributed to the launch of several mega projects during the last decade, especially after the adoption of the 2010 development plan which required bringing additional labor from abroad.
Also, the increase in the Kuwaiti population resulted in a jump in demand for domestic workers. Between 2010 and 2017, the number of domestic workers increased from around 570,000 to over 677,000. In other words, there has been an increase of more than 15,000 new domestic workers annually over the last decade.
The report shows that, in the past few years, the boom in the recruitment of foreign workers has relatively eased, especially since the sharp fall in oil prices in mid-2014 and the implementation of a policy to replace expatriates with nationals in the government sector began to take place.