Kuwait wants to slash the migrant proportion of its population from 70% to 30%, AFP reported on Wednesday quoting state media, with the prime minister vowing to "resolve the demographic imbalance."
Like its Gulf Arab neighbors, oil-rich Kuwait has a large foreign population mostly made up of Middle Eastern and Asian workers.
Out of 4.8 million inhabitants, some 3.3 million are foreign nationals, said Prime Minister Sabah Al-Khaled al-Hamad al-Sabah.
"The ideal demographic situation would be that Kuwaitis make up 70% of the population and non-Kuwaitis 30%," he told a gathering of local newspaper editors.
"So, we face a big challenge in the future to rectify this demographic imbalance."
Previously, The Kuwait government had decided to lay off 600,000 foreign workers, including Bangladeshis, to replace their jobs with the Kuwaitis, according to a report of the Gulf News published on May 20.
According to the news, Kuwait has decided to lay off 600,000 marginal workers and the country would apply quota system so that largest community will not exceed 20% of expatriate workers.
In between 1976 to 2019, a total of 628,950 Bangladeshi nationals went to Kuwait with overseas employment.
A total of 12,299 of them went to Kuwait in 2019 alone, data compiled by Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) shows.
Like its neighbors, Kuwait's state budgets have been slammed by tumbling oil prices sparked by the novel coronavirus pandemic, pushing it to seek ways to provide more jobs to its own citizens.
State-owned Kuwait Airways said last week it would lay off 1,500 expatriate employees due to "significant difficulties" caused by the pandemic.
