A ghost army of workers is paid to do nothing in the Gulf
Show up, swipe in. The routine is familiar to office workers everywhere. In Kuwait, it proved too much to ask. The government was trying to trim a wage bill that eat sup more than half its budget—an outlandish share even by Gulf standards.
Last year, it required public employees to swipe their finger son a biometric reader every morning. The following quarter, about 5,000 quit. Many of them rarely if ever turned up, and were worried they’ d get caught under the new rule, according to K hal if a Ham ada, the under secretary at Kuwait’ s Finance Ministry.
All Persian Gulf monarchies have some version of this problem. Government is the employer of first resort— even when it has nothing much for its employees to do. That’s part of a tacit agreement between ruling families and citizens. The latter may not get a say in how their countries are run, but at least they get looked after. Now, after years of lower crude prices, and increasingly aware that the oil will run out one day, Gulf rulers are seeking to repair public finances. The historical guarantee of government jobs “is becoming untenable,” said Steffen Hertog, a professor at the London School of Economics. The dilemma is especially acute in the biggest Gulf Arab nation, Saudi Arabia. About 70 per cent of Saudis are below the age of 30. Some 1.2 million will join the workforce by 2022. The government, which employs about two-thirds of Saudi citizens who work, is chipping away at a budget deficit that ballooned to almost 16 per cent of GDP after the oil shock of 2014.
One employee at a Saudi ministry, who asked not to be identified by name, says her boss has been on an unofficial three-day week for years, and didn’ t change that habit even when swiping in was mandated. When a minister visited her department, several people she’ d never seen before turned up.