KUWAIT: Until December 31, 2023, the number of Kuwaiti workers in the public sector reached 397,600 or 84.6 percent of the total workers, according to PACI. However, according to the Central Statistical Bureau this percentage scored 84.1 percent as of September 30, 2023. The number of Kuwaiti workers in the public sector in 1992 was about 103,000 workers. The rate of unemployment at that time ranged between 20-40 percent, according to World Bank estimates.

The national public sector employment increased about four times over 30 years. Nowadays, unemployment exceeded half of that number of workers and reached 6.0 percent. According to the estimates of the current government’s program, its numbers do not differ from the numbers of previous governments, as there are 100,000 male and female citizens who will join the labor market within four years, most of them are graduates of a public education system with 4.8 years lagging behind the regular education level.

This means that most of them have no opportunity to compete for a job opportunity outside the public sector. According to population and employment data issued by the CSB until September 30, 2023, the average salary of a citizen in the public sector is KD 1,952 for males, about KD 1,364 for females and about KD 1,600 for both. A public sector employee has less working hours, has the right to buy out his vacations, and gets meritorious work award even in the absence of excellence, as in the results of the Ministry of Education, Public Works, and the Municipality, and multiple allowances, most of which are nonsensical such as front-line award, the screen, committees, risks etc.

All of the above is acceptable if it is sustainable, if there is harmony between the reward and productivity, and if the minister or the parliamentarian who calls for increasing the incentives of a public office is the one who pays to finance it. Unfortunately, the reality is contrary to all of the above, and the result is victims or the young citizens who do not participate in a decision that will inevitably cause their unemployment, and perhaps their loss. In the short term, the available option is to control the lowest possible ceiling of public expenditures.

The most important provisions of this option are to eradicate their corruption, pursue their waste, and cease promoting the competitiveness of a public service. This is merely an introduction for the transition from the beginning of financial reform to economic reform. In the medium to long term, there is no alternative but to create a partnership with a strong, clean private sector, capable of competing in absorbing national workers, and later on able to support financial sustainability by creating a base for profits and income taxes.

This was the option that saved Communist China from a miserable reality in 1979. It started with a partnership in its agricultural sector. After the success of the experiment, other sectors followed suit in 1985. This means that creating an active partnership with the private sector is something that has nothing to do with emotions or ideologies; it is rather a rescue tool and exchange of interests. — Al-Shall Report