Kuwait plans to halve size of its expat workforce

“Kuwait is keen to achieve a situation in which the expatriate workforce will form 34 percent of the state’s population by the end of the development plan period,” minister of social affairs and labour, Dr Mohammad Al Afasi said, according to a report in the Kuwait Times.

At present, expatriate workers make up around 70 percent of the workforce in Kuwait.

Al Afasi stressed in the report that the move would not impact expatriate workers already in the country and was designed to prevent any further workers being recruited from abroad and reduce the “current demographical imbalance.”

This clampdown on expatriate numbers has already begun.

Last month Al Afasi said Kuwait plans to temporarily suspend the processing of commercial visit visas in a bid to curb the growth in expatriate workers.

The suspension of commercial visas was due to come into force on September 1. The move by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour was after it had noticed a significant number of expatriates remaining in the country and transferring the visitor visas into work permits.

The Ministry said it wanted to suspend the issuance of such visas in order to review how the system was being operated. The move may signal the start of a Gulf-wide clampdown on entry rules, said Theodore Karasik, director of research at Dubai’s Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

Gulf states may look to tighten visa restrictions in a bid to sidestep the political unrest that swept Bahrain and Oman earlier this year, but was partly blamed on the influence of foreign groups.

“It is important to realise across the GCC states there is a national security concern about expat labour,” Karasik told Arabian Business.

“Kuwait is in a very interesting situation because of what is going on in Syria and the Arab Spring. Seeing what happened in Bahrain, they don’t want that happening in their own country.