Expatriate Exodus – A New Crisis Or An Opportunity

Dr. Modhi Abdulaziz Al-Hamoud a columnist wrote in a column for Al Qabas daily that local newspapers recently indicated that the Gulf labor markets, especially in Kuwait and the Sultanate of Oman, will be negatively affected by the migration of expatriate workers, due to the economic repercussions of the “Covid-19” crisis with the simultaneous fall in oil prices and its impact on the budget of countries with ever-increasing deficits.

In both countries, the private sector will be the most affected by this displacement, especially due to the increase in the gap in skills and quantity between expatriates and citizens, the latter who are less interested in the private sector.

We predicted the difficulty of achieving this, but the events and the continuation of the pandemic may impose a reality that must be prepared for, especially in our societies in which young people make up the majority of its citizens, and where higher education institutions are pumping thousands of graduates into the labor market, and queues of those waiting for a job multiply every year.  All of this, of course, needs serious governmental interventions and policies to localize the labor market, as it is difficult for the private sector to attract citizens at a time when the gap between wages in this sector and the government sector is increasing, especially with the high financial cadres of some categories of government workers.

It is also difficult to achieve the required balance due to the government’s failure to market the “strategic alternative” to wage and salary categories, and the failure to extend safety and security nets for citizens working in the private sector, as is the case in neighboring countries! We now have an experience with the owners of small businesses, whose enterprises have been killed by the crisis, and they have no saviour so far.

The opportunity created by the health crisis must be seen as requiring investment to confront the apparent imbalance in the labor market, by rapid coordination between the concerned parties in the education apparatus, the service bureau and the workforce apparatus, to draw up replacement maps for citizens, and their requirements for incentives and qualification for the waiting queues of the nation’s youth. Perhaps in every threat lies an opportunity that must be invested in.

Between the three noes

The government was confused about its issue between “No” to the Public Debt Law, which the Council would not approve of, and “No” to the direction of imposing taxes and increasing fees that would not be accepted by the people or their MPs, and a large “No” that resonated between specialists and a large number of people and their MPs for the law to withdraw from the reserves of the future generations fund.

These nos reflect the need to solve our deep economic crisis not by a quick withdrawal from reserves, but by an integrated program of reform based on clear foundations to rationalize expenditures, restructuring inflated government agencies and departments, approving a strategic alternative for financial rewards to government jobs, creating new job opportunities for young people, and recovering what has been taken from mismanagement of public funds, all according to an announced timetable agreed upon by the two authorities so that we can save our present and the future of our generation

 

SOURCE  :  TIMES KUWAIT

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