Kuwait to slash expatriate workforce to cure population imbalance

Kuwait to slash expatriate workforce to cure population imbalance

Oil-rich Kuwait will slash the number of expatriate workforce to more than half of the current level in a bid to cure the population imbalance, Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Mohammad Al Afasi was quoted by Kuwait Times as saying on Monday.

"Kuwait is keen to achieve a situation in which the expatriate workforce will form 34 percent of the state's population (from the current 70 percent)," Al Afasi said.

He said job opportunities for Kuwaitis reduced due to a huge influx of foreign labors, which may further deteriorate the demographical imbalance.

The government will place restrictions on the process of transferring visas to work permits and heighten the criteria of obtaining work permits, he added.

In the past 50 years, Kuwait has recruited a huge number of foreign workers, mainly from Egypt and South Asia, to compensate for the labor vacuum left by the booming economy driven by oil revenues.

According to an estimate in 2010, the number of foreign workers in Kuwait is 2.34 million, 69 percent of the total population.

Editor: Yamei Wang

English.news.cn   2011-09-12 18:23:41 FeedbackPrintRSS
KUWAIT CITY, Sept. 12 (Xinhua)