DUBAI: Kuwait’s population decreased by 0.9 percent in the first six months of this year to 4.62 million, as expatriate numbers continued to decline, a report said.
More than 56,000 expats left the country in the first half of this year, pushing the total departures to about 190,000 since the start of the pandemic.
This follows the biggest annual drop recorded in almost 30 years (-2.2 percent) in 2020, the report by the National Bank of Kuwait said.
“This is mainly due to a continued fall in the number of resident expatriates, while the number of Kuwaiti nationals continued to rise. In fact, the ongoing enforcement of Kuwaitization policies and the weak economic environment caused by the pandemic have forced companies to shed workers, pushing thousands of expat households to leave the country,” the report said.
Expat share in Kuwait population lowest in 10 years
Authority for Civil Information (PACI) said expat numbers fell by 1.8 percent while Kuwait nationals saw modest growth of 0.9 percent. The share of expatriates in the total population fell back to 68.2 percent, its lowest in ten years.
Large youth population
Over a third of the Kuwaiti population is below the age of 15, highlighting the importance of accelerating job creation for this large cohort. The number of Kuwaitis under the age of 15 continues its deceleration to 0.1 percent year on year in the first half of this year, from 0.6 percent year on year last year and 1 percent in 2018.
Despite this moderation, this cohort of around 493,000 still accounts for more than a third of the Kuwaiti population and is likely to put more pressure on the labor market in the future, the report said.
Meanwhile, growth in the number of working-age nationals above the age of 15 has remained robust, estimated at 2.4 percent year on year.
Employment declines
Total employment declined by 1.7 percent year-to-date in the first half of this year, due to moderation in hiring activity among Kuwaiti nationals in the private sector and a drop in expat employment.
Employment growth among Kuwaitis moderated from 2.1 percent in 2020 to 1.3 percent in H1, driven mainly by a decline in the private sector (-1.5 percent or about 940 Kuwaitis).
However, the public sector kept its hiring apace at 1.8 percent or about 6,200 Kuwaitis partly due to Kuwaitization efforts.
“Such hiring will add pressure to the budget with the wage bill alone accounting for about 60 percent of total spending,” the report said.