KUWAIT CITY, April 2: Al- Shall Weekly disclosed that the number of workers in Kuwait has reached 2.037 million as at the end of 2022, excluding the domestic workers — 8.2 percent increase compared to 1.882 million by the end of 2021 according to the Central Statistics Bureau, reports Al-Qabas daily. These workers are classified according to number, gender, nationality, wage, age and others.

The average wage of Kuwaitis — male and female — in the government and private sectors is KD 1,493 (KD1,491 at the end of 2021) and KD 338 for non-Kuwaitis (same amount as at the end of 2021). All these figures do not include domestic workers, which will leave a significant impact on the lowest wage rate for non- Kuwaitis, if taken into account; and the impact of employment support allocations for Kuwaitis working in the private sector has not been taken into consideration as well.

The number of Kuwaiti workers in the government sector reached 371,000 — 3.6 percent higher than 358,000 at the end of 2021; while those in the private sector reached 71,800 compared to 72,200 at the end of 2021. Based on these figures, the number of Kuwaiti employees increased in the government sector, but decreased in the private sector; contrary to the declared objectives.

Kuwaitis constitute 83.8 percent of government sector workers and 16.2 percent of private sector workers. The percentage of Kuwaitis, who hold university degrees and are working in the government sector reached 46.6 percent, while 4.6 percent hold postgraduate degrees, 13.7 percent hold post-secondary and sub-university degrees, and 20.8 percent hold secondary or higher degrees. This means that 85.6 percent of Kuwaiti government sector employees hold secondary, university and doctorate degrees.

Despite this, the productivity of the government sector remains weak; because of the crowded and unorganized work environment, low educational level, the educational output does not match the manpower needs of the labor market or multiple certificates. More than a quarter of the total expatriate workers are domestic laborers whose number reached 753,000 as at the end of 2022 — 26.9 percent higher than 594,000 at the end of 2021. The number of male domestic workers totaled 347,000 while the females reached 406,000.

The higher number of expatriate workers based on nationality are the Indians — 835,000 compared to 717,000 at the end of 2021. They constitute 29.9 percent of the total workforce including Kuwaitis, and about 35.6 percent of the total expatriate workers. Second are the Egyptians who totaled 483,000 compared to 451,000 at the end of 2021. They constitute 17.8 percent of the total workforce and 21.2 percent of the expatriate workers.

Third are Kuwaiti workers who totaled 443,000 compared to 430,000 at the end of 2021. They constitute 15.9 percent of the total workers, excluding the military. In addition, the report revealed an increase in the stock market’s absolute liquidity in March, compared to that of February, due to the higher number of working days than February — amounting to KD 889.3 million, which is 27.1 percent higher than KD 699.7 million in February.

The average daily trading value for the month of March amounted to KD 40.4 million, a decrease of 1.8 percent compared to February’s KD 41.2 million. The stock exchange liquidity volume in the first quarter of this year (61 working days) amounted to KD 2.64 billion. The average daily trading value for the same period amounted to KD 43.3 million — decrease of 36.3 percent. The same rate from 2022, amounting to about KD 68 million, also decreased by about 28.3 percent, if compared to the level of that rate for the whole of 2022.