In line with the Kuwaiti government’s goal of organizing the labourmarket and limiting the number of marginal workers in the country, the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM) has come up with a set of new provisions for the transfer of expat workers within various sectors through the help of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and the Ministry of Interior (MOI).
According to Aseel Al- Mezyad, spokesperson of PAM and director of public relations and media, the new conditions for the movement will be announced “very soon,” which will affect outside recruitment activities as well as the regulation of labour market and population restructure as shared in a report by the ArabTimes.
New Conditions for Transfer of Expat Workers Visa Announced
Al-Mezyad further explained that the movement of expat workers from private to public sector must warrant an approval from the Civil Service Commission based on applicable regulations.
Moreover, for a worker to make the transition from public to private sector, they must be able to justify the need for their service based on their economic activity or contract project with the support of his/her employer.
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These are to be considered on top of the employee’s qualifications and the need of the sector for the services he/she offers as well as the type of worker’s license the expat holds. Al-Mezyad reiterated that the worker’s profession must match their academic attainment.
According to the Central Administration for Statistics, there are a total of 2.2 million workers in the Gulf State at the moment. Of which, 361,500 are Kuwaitis whereas 1.7 million are foreign nationals with those coming from non-Arab countries comprising a little more than half this number (50.6%) and then Arabs (29.9%).
According to the Public Authority for Manpower, there are some 1.6 million registered expats from 165 countries in Kuwait.