KUWAIT CITY, Dec 24: Al-Shall’s weekly report said that the quarterly report on labor statistics as of June 30, 2023 issued by the Central Administration of Statistics published numbers that are either incorrect, or they need explanation and interpretation because they contradict all the goals of development, population, and labor policies, reports Al-Anba daily. Al-Shall explained after excluding family sector workers, these numbers indicate that total employment increased between June 2022 and 2023, by about 173.1 thousand workers, or by 9%, to rise to about 306.5 thousand workers, and if the increase is added to it with family sector employment, the rate of increase in one year will reach about 11.9%. The total Kuwaiti workforce as of June 30, 2023 was about 447.1 thousand workers, including female workers, about 258.9 thousand workers, and their percentage of the total Kuwaiti workforce was about 57.9%. This means, on the one hand, that Kuwait is the most advanced and fair country in the world in terms of women’s equality.

Unemployment
On the other hand, these numbers may be read as an artificial and unsustainable labor market whose goal is employment as long as public finances are able to absorb disguised unemployment, and it is the duty of official statistics officials to provide their interpretation of the meaning of these numbers. Al-Shall’s report said that the growth rate of Kuwaiti employment in a year amounted to about 1.94. %, while the growth rate of non- Kuwaiti labor reached about 11.1%, that is, more than 5 times the growth of Kuwaiti labor, which led to a decline in the percentage of Kuwaiti labor to the total from 22.9% to 21.4%. The report added, “If it is true, it is a reality that is contrary to all the goals of the government’s visions, its development plans, and the programs of successful governments, because all its repercussions on the country’s economic, financial, and social performance are negative, even if it is not true, and we hope so, as the country needs a revolution in the manufacture of its statistics, so growth increases.”

Modernization in the world today has become digital, and we know that national statistics in the country are lagging and weak. The proportions of employment according to nationality to the total number of workers are 24.5% for Egyptian workers, 23.1% for Indian workers, and 21.4% for Kuwaiti workers. The percentage of the latter is mentioned in another table in the same report, 21.7%, and those percentages are after excluding the family sector, so those percentages change to 30.2% for Indian workers, 16.8% for Egyptian workers, and 15.5% for Kuwaiti workers after adding family sector workers.