KUWAIT: Two million Asians live in Kuwait, almost 40 percent of the total population and 58.5 percent of total expatriates, according to the latest official statistics released by the government’s Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI). About 90 percent of Asians, or 1.8 million, are workers who made up 70.6 percent of all expatriate workers until the end of 2024, the PACI report said.
PACI said Kuwait’s population nearly touched the 5-million mark, coming at 4.988 million, an increase of under 3 percent from the previous year. Kuwaitis rose slightly to 1.57 million or just 31 percent of the total population, the report said. Arabs came in third place with 1.33 million, while Africans, Europeans, Americans and Australians made up the rest, according to the report. About 781,000 expats, a majority of them Asians, work as domestic helpers like maids, private drivers and others.
Kuwait has a total workforce of 3.065 million workers, 505,000 of whom are nationals and 2.56 million are expats, PACI said. As many as 401,000 Kuwaitis are employed in the public sector, constituting 79 percent of the total national workforce, while 70,700 Kuwaitis have jobs in the private sector, but they barely make 4 percent of the manpower in the private sector.
On the contrary, only 116,200 expats work in government jobs while 2.44 million are employed in the private sector, PACI said. It added 2.51 million workers are employed in the private sector and just 517,000 hold government jobs. Close to one-third of all expats live in Farwaniya governorate with Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh home to about 175,000 Asians and around 60,000 Arabs. It is considered the poorest area in Kuwait.
According to PACI, a majority of the population or 3.72 million (75 percent) are Muslims, 775,000 (15.5 percent) are Christian and just under half a million hail from other religions. Of the total workforce, 2.15 million are male and 915,000 are female.
