Growth rate of expat workers twice that of Kuwaitis

Asians top workforce list

KUWAIT CITY, April 5: The quarterly report of the Central Statistics Administration for last year revealed a huge disparity in the average annual growth between the number of expatriates and Kuwaiti personnel in the labor market, indicating the growth rate of expatriate workers is twice their Kuwaiti counterparts’ whose share of 18.6 percent in 2015 dropped to 18.1 percent during the year in review, reports Al-Rai daily.

The quarterly report showed the total number of workers as of Dec 31, 2016 stood at 1,965,381 with an increase of 228,112 individuals from the previous figure at the same period in 2015, indicating 6.1 percent increase. Kuwaitis among the workers were 354,806 as against 1,610,575 expatriates.

It emphasized that Kuwaiti workers grew by 3 percent from 344,622 to 354,806. It also observed that female Kuwaiti workers grew by 3.9 percent ahead of

their male counterparts who grew by 1.8 percent only.

On the contrary, the number of expatriate workers increased by 6.5 percent from 1,508,531 to 1,610,575. Non-Arabs

topped the chart covering 50 percent of the entire workforce, followed by workers from other Arab countries constituting 30.2 percent, while Kuwaiti workers came third with 18.1

percent.

Asian workers were almost 1 million, Arabs grew by 600,000 and with about 7,000 Europeans, and others from North America reaching 1,000.