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135,000 expat workers left Kuwait in 2021

April 8, 2022 at 12:37 pm

Kuwaiti healthy ministry workers prepare to scan expatriates living in Kuwait amid the coronavirus outbreak in Kuwait City on March 12, 2020 [YASSER AL-ZAYYAT/AFP via Getty Images]

Some 134,160 expats left Kuwait during 2021, while the number of migrants arriving to take up jobs in the kingdom decreased to 1.45 million males and females, official data has revealed.

Government data said that the number of arrivals decreased from 1.58 million to 1.45 million at the end of December 2020.

Of those who left the labour market, 70 per cent of the expatriates were Egyptian and Indian nationals.

December 2021 witnessed an increase in the number of Kuwaitis who entered the labour market, when compared to the same month of the previous year. Some 430,120 Kuwaitis found jobs in December 2021, a 23,450 increase on December 2020.

On the whole, the number of people in employment in the kingdom declined in 2021, standing at 1.88 million compared to 1.99 million in December 2020.

It indicated that 77.2 per cent of the workforce in Kuwait is controlled by non-Kuwaitis, while Kuwaiti nationals make up 22.8 per cent of the workforce. In addition, 5,121 Gulf nationals work in the country and 589,600 others are of Arab origins.

Kuwait is working to reduce its reliance on foreign labour so that 70 per cent of jobs are carried out by its nationals and 30 per cent are occupied by expats.

The coronavirus pandemic and reduced global oil prices also reduced the Gulf state’s need for foreign workers as lockdown and slower economic growth have affected global economies since early 2020.

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