Latest statistics from the government show that expatriates employed in public sector entities decreased by 4,086 to now stand at 120,000, while citizens working in this sector rose by 12,511 to a total of 340,000.

The figures also reveal that 101,770 workers were added to the labor pool in the past year, taking those employed in the Kuwait labor market to a total of 2.8 million.

Of the total workers employed, around 16 percent or 460,000 were employed by the public sector and the remaining 84 percent or nearly 2.3 million were hired by the private sector, including nearly 670,000 as domestic workers. In the private sector, there were 1.6 million expatriates and only around 64,000 Kuwaitis.

According to the statistics, the Asian community accounted for the largest chunk of workers in the labor market at 1.7 million employees followed by Arab workers at 667,000 and citizens in third spot with nearly 400,000 employees.

 

There were also 42,000 African workers in the labor pool, 79 percent of them hired as domestic helpers; 9,918 Europeans, with 8,637 working in the private sector, 1,272 in the public sector and 9 working in households as domestic workers. In addition, there were 9,456 US citizens, 879 from Latin America and 672 from Australia.

The statistics also showed that number of Kuwaitis holding Master’s and PhD certificates increased to 4,633 between June 2018 and June 2019, including 2,466 holders of Masters Degree and 2,167 holders of PhD.

In addition, around 66 percent of the holders of Masters Degree in the Kuwaiti labor market are foreigners, and 1,812 of expatriates hold a PhD.

The number of illiterates in the country stood at over 90,000, with the overwhelming majority being expatriates and only 146 illiterates among citizens. In addition, to this vast number that cannot read or write, there were an additional 1.2 million who could barely read and write but did not have any school certificate.


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