Kuwait terminates contract of senior expats in municipality

The Kuwaiti authorities have terminated several expatriates holding high positions in the municipality sector as part of government efforts to employ Kuwaitis, local media reported.

Director-General of the Kuwait Municipality Ahmad Al Manfuhi has terminated the services of 4 foreign advisers at the legal affairs department, 4 legal researchers and 2 legal specialists, Arabic daily Al-Rai reported, citing municipal sources.

On the other hand, the Kuwait Municipality terminated the services of 132 expatriates working in a number of municipal sectors.

The decision issued by the municipality’s director general, Ahmed Al-Manfouhi, came within the Kuwaitiization policy issued by the Civil Service Council, and in the implementation of the policy of replacing national elements.

Arabic daily Al-Qabas quoted an informed source – unnamed – that, there are new batches whose services will be terminated very soon.

On August 16, 2022, the Minister of Municipality, Rana Al-Faris, announced a three-phase time plan for the Kuwaitization of jobs in the municipality.

The first phase begins with the termination of contracts of 33 percent of non-Kuwaitis, in a warning period starting from September 1.

As for the second phase, 33 per cent of services will be terminated on February 1, 2023, and in the third phase, a warning period will be given from July 1, 2023 to the remaining number of employees.

Kuwait is working to control the labour market, reduce the number of expatriate workers, and localize jobs in most sectors, especially government ones.

According to Kuwaiti official figures, the number of expatriates working in the government sector is about 8,000, 44 percent of whom are in the Ministry of Health, 40 percent in the Ministry of Education, and 16 percent in the rest of the sectors, compared to 256,386 Kuwaiti employees.

The reason behind the decrease in the number of expatriate workers is the slowdown in economic growth in the country, the lack of realistic solutions to the economic decline, in addition to the increasing unemployment rate among Kuwaiti youth.

According to the report of the Kuwait General Administration of Statistics, the number of unemployed Kuwaitis, until the end of last April, amounted to about 1,48,000 Kuwaitis.

Foreigners make up approximately 3.4 million of Kuwait’s total population of 4.6 million.