Kuwaitization of public sector reaches 77% in 2020

Kuwait employed 420,800 people in the public sector as of June 2020. (REUTERS/file)

• Ministries and government departments employed 334,000 people
• 68.3% of the 28,300 employed in state-owned companies were Kuwaiti

RIYADH: Kuwaitization of the public sector reached almost 77% last year as government employment grew to 420,800, up 11.4 percent since 2016, Al Anba paper reported citing the Central Statistical Bureau.
Ministries and government departments employed 334,000 people as of the end of June, 2020, of which 77.5 percent were Kuwaiti, the data showed. Public agencies and institutions employed 38,400, of whom 86.5 percent were Kuwaiti. Bodies and institutions with independent budgets employed 19,600 workers, of whom 59.4 percent were Kuwaiti.
Kuwait Airways employed 6,915 staff, 35.2 percent of whom were nationals. Employment in the 16 fully state-owned companies was 28,300, 68.3 percent of them Kuwaiti. About three quarters of them work in the oil sector.
The biggest share of non-Kuwaiti workers in the public sector were from non-GCC Arab countries (42.6 percent), followed by Asian countries (38.7 percent) and GCC nations (7.4 percent).