Hiring Rate in 2020 Slides 50 Percent Due to COVID-19

Hiring Rate in 2020 Slides 50 Percent Due to COVID-19

Hiring activity has dropped by 50 percent from 2019, a Gulf Talent analyst told Arab News.

In Kuwait, about 1.5 million expat workers are expected to leave the country by the end of 2020 due to the economic downturn after the state forced companies to cut their workforce.

The expats, who "are either illiterate or can merely read and write,“ were not the country's priority, Kuwait's Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem said.

"While some officials in Kuwait have echoed these sentiments, political gridlock in the country's parliament has thus far prevented decisive movement on the labor front. However, political momentum for labor market reforms that reduce the number of expatriates in Kuwait seems to be gaining speed,“ Dr. Robert Mogielnicki, resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told Arab News.

In Saudi Arabia, 1.2 million expat workers are also expected to leave the Kingdom this year, according to the Jadwa Investment Company's latest figures.

In Egypt, it is estimated that one million of five million Egyptians working in Arab countries - especially in the GCC - will be terminated by the end of 2020, local daily Egypt Today reported citing the head of Expats Employment Unit at the Chamber of Commerce Hamdi Imam.

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