Indians top with 291,000, Philippines 163,000 domestics - 677,000 domestics recorded as of Nov 2017KUWAIT CITY, April 26: Domestic service employment has become an essential part of the Kuwaiti economy with the number of employees in home employment reaching 677,000 by the end of November 2017, reports Al-Anba daily quoting statistics from Kuwait Central Statistical Bureau.Kuwaitis spend KD 1.02 billion ($3.4 billion) on salaries and other expenditure a year on domestic workers, which is more than 5 percent of Kuwait’s total annual government spending and nearly 3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.The money spent on domestics every month is 85 million dinars ($280 million), an average of about 125 dinars per month on one worker, including an average monthly salary of 100 dinars, in addition to telecommunications, clothes, airfares and others.The cost of recruitment amounts works out to about 700 million dinars on the existing laborers (one thousand dinars average cost of recruitment per worker). The annual cost of recruitment is about 15 million dinars for 15 thousand domestic workers per year.Domestic workers, like other residents, make a contribution to the economic activity although they are less than others through their economic activities that serve mainly specific economic sectors, including, the airlines and tourism since a large number of them on an average makes a trip to their homeland.Most of them also transfer a bulk of their salaries to their home since they do not need to spend it here because of the nature of their work and this benefit the exchange companies. Then come the telecommunications companies since most household workers which represent 25 percent of Kuwait’s workforce rely on the Internet services to contact their families almost daily.The retail traders also benefit because of the contribution the household workers make since they purchased stuff when they go on holidays.The rising rates of domestic hires reflect the increase in demand, which led to an increase in the cost of recruitment amounting which is about KD 1,300 for Filipinos and Nepalese.The market is expected to witness a significant rise in these prices since Ramadan in just around the corner.According to statistics and data of the Central Statistical Bureau, Indians top with 291,000, followed by the Philippines with a total of 163,000, Bangladesh 81,000, Sri Lanka 67,000, Nepalese fifth with 24,000.The government agencies do not rule out that the number of workers will increase in the coming days to reach 700,000 by the end of the year.