KUWAIT: Egypt has the largest expatriate group in Kuwait's labor force for the first time, according to recent statistics. A government report released recently shows that there were 456,600 Egyptian workers in Kuwait's labor market as of the end of September 2021; or 24 percent of the total workforce of 1.9 million workers (excluding domestic helpers). The Indian workforce of 451,300 (23.7 percent) came second followed by the Kuwaiti workforce of 424,100 (22.3 percent), according to the newest statistical report prepared by the State Audit Bureau.

The statistics further show that the Kuwaiti labor force make up 22.3 percent of the total workforce, compared to 77.7 percent non-Kuwaitis. Furthermore, the Kuwaiti labor force increased by 2.7 percent during the period covered by the report, whereas the non-Kuwaiti labor force dropped from 80.3 percent, according to the report.

In fourth place comes the Bangladeshi workforce with 161,100 (8.5 percent), followed by the Pakistani workforce with 70,300 (3.7 percent), Filipino with 66,000 (3.5 percent) and Syrian with 63,200 (3.3 percent) respectively. Nepal came in eight place with the number of workers in Kuwait with 40,000 (2.1 percent), followed by Jordan with 25,200 (1.3 percent) and Iran with 20,300 (1.1). The remaining 6.6 percent are workers of other nationalities (around 125,100), the statistics show.

According to the statistics, there were 351,600 Kuwaitis working in the public sector as of September 30, 2021, of whom 209,300 are women. Meanwhile, there were around 89,000 non-Kuwaitis in the public sector. On the other hand, Kuwaitis in the private sector reached only around 72,500 compared to around 1,390,000 expatriates. These figures do not include domestic helpers whose number has reached around 608,000 percent as of September 30, 2021, of whom around 307,000 are female and 301,000 are male.