Cairo: Kuwait suspended allowing the recruitment of foreign domestic workers as the country is facing a shortage of home helpers resulting from coronavirus-induced restrictions that the government has recently loosened.

This is a step to end; the parliament of Kuwait interior and Defense Committee has approved a proposal of lawmaker’s for re-opening the issuance of visas for new domestic labour or helpers while observing health stipulations for recruitment, reported by the Tribunal Community.

According to the article, MP Farz Al Daihani in which he stated in his proposal that Kuwaiti families, particularly those with special needs and those with senior members, are in desperate need of domestic labour.

“Given that the government has permitted all stranded employees to return home,” he said, “it is conceivable to open entrance visas for new domestic labour while adhering to all health standards.”

However, the government did not specify any details or date and time; moreover, the Kuwaiti parliament debated the lawmaker’s proposal that comes following media about the moves to expand markets for domestic labour recruitment.

The recent government decisions regarding a complete return to the manifestations of normal life as they were before the outbreak of the Covid- 19 pandemic revealed the severe shortage of expatriate workers that the Kuwaiti labour market faces in various sectors, particularly in the field of indispensable professionals and craftsmen, where demand is increasing at an unprecedented rate.

According to statistics, there have been tens of thousands of expatriate workers in the private and governmental sectors who have left the country permanently or voluntarily since the outbreak began until now, unlike those whose residences expired while they were outside Kuwait and they were unable to return, but more than 80% of this category of employees registered in the private sector, where “craftsmen” took the lion’s share, and who have affected a large number of people.