ShareKUWIAT: In what can be seen as a blow to the government's plan to encourage national manpower to seek jobs in the private sector, recent statistics showed that 11,443 citizens resigned from their private sector jobs since 2015 and joined the government. Recent social security statistics show a drop in the number of citizens joining the private sector, namely in the period between 2015 and 2017, according to sources familiar with the figures. "This drop reflects citizens' wish to enjoy more stability and security in government jobs and avoid the growing pressure on them in the private sector," said the sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The workers' shift to the public sector goes against the government's push to recruit more citizens in the private sector, which not only hampers efforts to resolve the problem of unemployment, but also impedes the state's plans to address the country's demographic imbalance. While national manpower makes up nearly 75 percent of the public sector's labor force, it makes up less than 5 percent of the total number of workers in the private sector, according to the Central Statistical Bureau's statistics.
Observers believe that all attempts to 'rebalance' the state's demographics - expatriates currently make up nearly 70 percent of Kuwait's total population - are futile unless the government figures out a way to reduce the private sector's heavy reliance on foreign workers, and encourage citizens to leave the less demanding, more lucrative government job for a relatively more taxing, less rewarding career in the private sector.
Jleeb's development
In the meantime, Minister of Public Works and State Minister for Municipal Affairs Hussam Al-Roumi blamed the lack of labor cities to house thousands of low-wage workers currently inhabiting Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh for failure to implement a study prepared by Kuwait Municipality towards the end of 2015 to develop private residence the area. Roumi described the difficulties facing the project in a memo to the National Assembly, saying that they include 'bachelor' residences, construction debris, encroached lands and bad facilities, besides infrastructure that cannot cope with the high population density and ownership of open areas. "It is not possible to implement that study unless labor cities are built, so laborers living in that area can be moved, besides having the budget for reclaiming property in coordination with the finance ministry," he said in the memo, adding that the municipality plans to study Jleeb in more detail.
By A Saleh
