Oh Boy!!!!! Naruto start thinking about Naruto Jr.
The unemployment rate among Gulf nationals is likely to rise this year as the economic downturn limits job creation in the private and public sectors, a new report by the National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) has said.
“With the rising number of new entrants to the region’s labour force, reflecting the youthful profile of the population, evidently the greatest responsibility for providing new job opportunities rests with the private sector,” Kuwait’s largest bank wrote in a research note.
According to data compiled by NBK, nationals working in the public sector in the GCC accounted for almost 58 percent of all nationals employed in 2007.
This ratio is high by international standards, but varies by country, it noted.
Almost 90 percent of all Qataris in full time employment in 2007 worked in the public sector, compared with 50 percent of Saudis, 86 percent of Emiratis and 84 percent of Kuwaitis.
“These numbers may suggest that the ability of the public sector to continue absorbing new entrants to the labor force may have reached its upper limit. Bahrain openly announced last December the limiting of new hires in its public sector,” NBK said.
Private sector employment among Gulf nationals rose at an average rate of 8.0 percent per year between 2003 and 2007, while average growth in public sector employment was 2.8 percent.
As a result, the share of the private sector in total employment rose by 5 percent over the same period.
More recent figures for Kuwait show that the employment of nationals in the private sector rose by 16 percent in 2008, while public sector employment only grew 2.9 percent.
Nationalization programs have played a role in increasing private sector employment, but such programs are neither viable nor effective in the long run, NBK said, citing development experts including the IMF and the World Bank.
In a recent report, the World Bank recommended that GCC countries put more emphasis on upgrading the quality of education in order to equip their workforces with the kind of skills demanded by the private sector.
NBK described the Kuwaiti government’s decision to raise the mandatory quota for national employees at private institutions as “a badly timed burden on institutions, even those that have so far remained healthy”.
“A more effective policy would be to focus on new measures that activate the role of the private sector in the economy, and thus the demand for labour,” it said