Unemployed expats pose security threat: Committee

KUWAIT: The increasing number of unemployed expatriates poses social and security risks in Kuwait, the parliament’s budgets committee warned in a recent statement. It based its conclusion on official statistics which estimated the number of foreigners in Kuwait without a job at 17,498, compared to 11,670 unemployed Kuwaitis.

The number of expatriate manpower in the public and private sectors reached 2,138,163 compared to 435,904 Kuwaiti employees, according to a recent Finance Ministry report. Expatriate manpower’s percentage in Kuwait’s labor force reaches 83 percent, compared to 17 percent for Kuwaitis, the report added.

Meanwhile, the report warns that Kuwait is expected to see an influx of fresh graduates who enter the labor market soon, based on the fact that 46.3 percent of the population are less than 20 years of age. A recent Civil Service Commission (CSC) report indicated that 71 percent of public sector employees, which reached 331,056 as of July 1, 2016, are working in five main sectors, which are : education (23 percent), management (15 percent), medical services (14 percent), engineering (12 percent) and business (7 percent).

In the meantime, the statistics show that Kuwaitis continue to dominate labor forces in the public sector with 247,665 (74.9 percent) compared to 83,391 expatriates (25.1 percent). Expat workers include 15 percent Arab nationals, dominated by Egyptians (95 percent) who are found primarily in the Education sector, 9 percent non- Arabs who are found mostly in the medical service sector, and 1.1 percent Gulf nationals who are also found in the education and health sectors.

As for Kuwaitis, the statistics show that a majority works in the education and training sector with 520,33 employees, following by administrative support (48,490), engineering (36,948) and health services (14,931). — Al-Qabas

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