66% Kuwait professionals prefer to be ‘self-employed’

This news has been read 12020 times!

KUWAIT CITY, Aug 22: The Entrepreneurship in the MENA survey, conducted recently by Bayt.com, the Middle East’s #1 job site, and market research agency YouGov, has found that two-thirds (66%) of Kuwait respondents would like to be self-employed or have their own business if given the choice.

The survey found that even among those who are employed, 51% are currently thinking of starting their own business. 32% of respondents have tried to start their own business in the past, while 10% never thought of establishing a new company.Personal fulfilment (55%), freedom to choose work-life balance (49%), high monetary gains (42%) and build a business my children can inherit (42%) emerge as the top reasons for preferring to be self-employed. Those who have already started their business seem to have similar reasoning. When asked about the reasons MENA professionals have for starting their own business, the top answers were‘greater independence in what I want to achieve’ (32%) and ‘wanted more income’ (32%).

On the other hand, 25% of Kuwait professionals claimed they would prefer to seek employment in a company. The main reasons are having regular income (67%), learning new skills (43%) and stability of employment/ job security (33%). Ola Haddad, Director of Human Resources at Bayt.com says: “Entrepreneurs are part of this rapidly changing landscape where many businesses are adopting entirely new ways of work that will not necessarily revert to precrisis conditions. Our annual survey aims to identify the opportunities and challenges of entrepreneurship to help entrepreneurs maximize impact and drive growth and innovation in the economy.”

Most Popular Industries
The most appealing industries for entrepreneurship are considered to be Consumer Goods/ FMCG (12%), followed by IT/ Internet/ E-commerce (11%), Commerce/ Trade/ Retail (10%) and Real Estate/ Property Development (10%).

Kuwait Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
Entrepreneurship continues to be a growing trend in Kuwait. Despite the given challenges of setting up a business, Bayt.com research indicates that entrepreneurship has become more popular than ever before with many entrepreneurs looking to grow their startups and establish business.In fact, 7 in 10 respondents are planning to hire for their business in the next year.

Of those who are self-employed in the MENA, 60% took the first step to establish their business in the last 5 years. When it comes to the current stage of their business, 35% of the self-employed are at the startup stage of the business, 27% claim that their business is well established and performing well.

On the other hand, 21% say their business is established but currently not performing well. One-third of respondents (33%)have personal ambitions to grow their business further in their country of residence, followed by 24% who aim to become an important international player and 24% aim to become a major international group

This news has been read 12020 times!