Kuwait: Professional efficiency tests to be expanded for expats
Professional efficiency tests for foreign workers are still valid in Kuwait and will expand to include more jobs, a Kuwait manpower official has said. “Applying the professional efficiency tests to expatriates coming to the country is ongoing. No decision has been issued to scrap or putting them off,” said Ahmed Al Moussa, the director-general of the Public Authority of Manpower.
He explained that the global coronavirus pandemic and related restrictions have prompted a halt to migrant workers’ recruitment from abroad in Kuwait. “So, the tests have automatically stopped as no new workers have been recruited. But the tests apply to cases that the Coronavirus Emergency Committee approves their recruitment,” Al Moussa added in media remarks.
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The official said that the tests, aimed at determining the employees’ competence, also apply to foreign workers residing in Kuwait when they transfer their residency permits or change jobs based on a specific list of vocations. “The list will expand to cover the largest possible professions,” he said without elaborating.
According to Eman Al Ansari, the deputy director-general of the Public Authority of Manpower, the agency is studying a list of other professions, which would potentially be subjected to such tests in consultation with respective professional associations. “Accounts are one category that is likely to undergo these tests soon,” she said without details.
Foreigners make up nearly 3.4 million of Kuwait’s 4.8 million population.
In recent months, there have been increasing calls in Kuwait for curbing foreigners’ employment amid accusations that migrant workers have strained the country’s infrastructure facilities.
