Is it decision time for Western expat professionals in Kuwait?

From Kuwait’s dismal showing in the most recent expat survey through rumours of Kuwaitization gone mad to increasing insecurity even amongst seasoned professionals, qualified expats have plenty to worry about.

As Kuwaitization digs its claws into the emirate’s expatriate community, the exodus of expat labour is crawling up the ranks towards the previously protected Western expatriate community. In the less exalted sectors, increasing numbers of essential but less highly qualified workers are being forced to choose between staying on whilst sending their children back to the home country to stay with the extended family or simply packing up and leaving for a friendlier location. Those who don’t leave are being disallowed from taking jobs in key sectors, increasing the feeling their lives are no longer under their control.

As more and more give up and go, the impact of their leaving is beginning to hit home on the economy, with sales in just about every retail sector in decline and service companies worrying about their profits. Kuwaitization has caused a psychological and emotional crisis in those whose tasks were to keep the country running at an admittedly more basic but no less important level. As regards the upper levels of the expatriate community, their opinions as expressed in the survey seem to have foretold a disaster for the emirate’s image as a tempting career advancement and financially beneficial move. According to one expat lecturer at a Kuwait private university, exorbitant healthcare fees, soaring petrol prices, increases in taxation and new visa rules strongly indicate a turning tide against expatriate professionals.

Oversupply and a significant drop in demand for expat-style residential apartments are other signs of the expat exodus from Kuwait. Even reducing rents fails when former tenants have left for fresh fields and pastures new. Many now believe that reducing dependency on oil revenues isn’t practical when revenues from other sources are evaporating, and replacing expat talent with the local version doesn’t take into account the current Arab youth’s lack of understanding of work ethics and avoidance of jobs seen as low on the social scale. Another Arab, a professor at a Kuwait private university,, tells it like it is, saying expatriates are essential for the emirate’s economic growth as well as its socio-cultural expansion, with a focus on quality rather than on slashing their total numbers for no good reason the only way forward. However, the results of the damning survey may yet help throw the baby out with the bathwater, leaving those backing uncontrolled Kuwaitization to deal with the resulting mess.