Kuwaiti MPs mull banning recruitment of ‘new expats’, imposing quotas

A panel of Kuwait’s lawmakers plan to propose regulations including a ban on recruiting ‘new expats’ and limiting the duration of residence for foreign workers in the country.

MP Khalil Al-Saleh, head of Assembly’s human resource development committee, said the panel will make the proposal during a meeting with the government this week, local daily Kuwait Times reported.

Saleh stressed that addressing the ‘imbalance’ in Kuwait’s demographic structure requires “draining” the sources of visa trading and a “ban on the recruitment of new expat labour”, as well as the Kuwaitisation of jobs, imposing certain quotas on expat communities and limiting the stay for foreign workers in the country.

His remarks come after Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah said last week that the Gulf state would like expat numbers to reduce to 30 per cent of the country’s population – down from 70 per cent at present. That would require cutting down the number of foreign workers by around 2.5 million.

Read: Kuwait doesn’t want to be an expat-majority nation anymore

MPs have already called to replace all expat jobs in the government within one year.

Last month, it was announced that Kuwait’s Municipality will soon dismiss all expat employees and replace them with Kuwaitis.

The decision also calls for freezing employment applications from expats, cancelling appointments under process and not renewing the contracts of existing employees.

Read: Kuwait’s Municipality to dismiss all expats, freeze the hiring of foreign nationals

Last year, MP Safa Al Hashem also urged Kuwait to expel close to two million expatriates from the country over the next five years to rectify its ‘demographic imbalance’.

She said that it was essential to have Kuwaitis number more than 50 per cent of the country’s population.

Read: Kuwaiti MP calls for expelling close to 2 million expats, urges remittance tax