Kuwait suspends appointments, promotions at state agencies

Cairo: Kuwait has announced temporarily halting appointments and promotions at all state agencies, saying the step aims to serve public interest.

The country’s Official Gazette, Kuwait Today, carried a decree issued by Kuwait’s Crown Prince Meshal Al Ahmad ordering a halt to decisions of appointments, promotions, transfers and secondments at all state institutions for three renewable months. The decree has taken immediate effect.

The announcement said the decree was dictated by public interest, without elaborating.

It was based on the constitution, a 2021 royal decree tasking the crown prince with some constitutional duties of Kuwait’s Emir, and a 1979 law on civil service.

The number of public sector workers in Kuwait are around 483,200 with foreigners accounting for around 23 per cent of the employees, the highest among the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, according to official figures released earlier this year.

In the February statistics, the Public Authority for Civil Information put the overall numbers of the government and private sectors in Kuwait at 1.9 million, some 75 per cent of them working in the private sector.

Foreigners make up around 3.2 million of Kuwait’s overall population of 4.6 million, according to a recent Kuwaiti census.

In recent years, Kuwait has stepped up efforts to create jobs for its citizens and replacing foreign employees and adjust a demographic imbalance.

There have recently been increasing calls in Kuwait for curbing foreigners’ employment along accusations that migrant workers have strained the country’s infrastructure facilities amid economic repercussions from the COVID-19 pandemic.