Kuwait’s Ministry of Social Affairs terminates contract of 120 expats

Kuwait City: Kuwait’s Ministry of Social Affairs has ended the service of 120 expats last month, Al Rai reported.

A source told Al Rai the Minister, Rana Al Faris, plans on terminating all expat employees who work for the ministry by the end of the current fiscal year, March 2021.

The source added Al Faris’s plan follows the Kuwaitisation framework that seeks to replace all expats working in the public sector so that 100 per cent of the governmental employees are Kuwaitis.

Kuwaitisation

The Kuwaitisation policy, which was first introduced in 2017, is working towards creating a majority Kuwaiti workforce in the public sector by 2021.

In December 2019, there were around 120,000 expats working in governmental positions. That number has dropped as there have been massive layoffs in recent months.

According to a recent report by the Civil Service Commission, around 79 per cent of all employees working in the public sector are Kuwaitis, bringing them to a total of 297,335. As for expats, they make up 21 per cent of the workforce in the public sector as there are a total of 34,347 expats working in the public sector.

In September, the Civil Service Commission announced that since 2017, 13 out of the 16 government agencies have achieved Kuwaitisation.

Back in August, various government agencies began laying off expats, especially those working in non-technical fields. Then a few weeks later, around 1,183 job contacts for expats working across 48 governmental agencies were cancelled.