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Salary increases

I just found out everyone is getting a salary increase, Kuwaitis will get KD120 while everyone else gets KD50. I guess now we can all afford to drink KDD milk again.

Update: everyone else = expats

update2: Here is more info from KUNA

The cabinet approved Thursday a monthly bonus of KD 120 for Kuwaitis employed in the public and private sectors, retirees and those receiving social assistance as of March 1, and KD 50 for expatriates working in the public sector, said Finance Minister Mustafa Al-Shimali.

Speaking to reporters following the extraordinary cabinet meeting, he said a monthly bonus of KD 120 will be paid as of March 1, 2008 for Kuwaitis employed in both the public and private sectors. He explained that retired citizens would also be receiving this bonus, as well as all those receiving social assistance from the state. Moreover, Al-Shimali said expatriates employed in the public sector would also be getting KD 50 on a monthly basis.

58 replies on “Salary increases”

it says there 50 kd monthly for expatas working in public sectors, did not mention the private sectors,,, not fair.

whats your source mark? Everyone (expats) even implies domestic workers. I find it very hard to believe that a maid or helper in a house earning 60 kd a month will get an extra 50kd. Is this per month or on a yearly salary?

“including expats working in a private company?”

No
Government: Kuwaities KD 120, Expats KD 50
Private: Only Kuwaities as part of the social benefits KD 120

But I speculate most companies will match this for their employees

Al-Shimali said expatriates employed in the public sector would also be getting KD 50 on a monthly basis. So why the segregation, 120KD for Kuwaitis and less than half for expats, last time I recall they do most of the work, they should get the 120. But again god did not create us equally!

So every non kuwaiti in kuwait that works will get 50kd?? doesn’t make sense… then every poor indian or other nationality would hurry to kuwait for a job. So maids street cleaners, indians working in small shops etc will get kd50… mako shoghol?? If you people use a a little logic you would understand that the kd50 is for the expats (ie, the egyptian as an example) who work side by side the kuwaitis in the ministries will benefit from this to help them cope with inflation.. not foreigners who work in shop or the street.
We are giving enough of our money to other countries, now we have to make do with only a KD120 due to us sharing our salary increases with foreigners… it was supposed to be an increase of at least KD200 to KD300. Even at KD 250 the average increase is nothing compared to the increases recieved by Saudis, Uae, and others. I guess in the end the kuwaitis have to share everything, whats next??

So what’s the average salary in the ministries?? Lets say KD850…. at least.. and the increase is 120kd :
So 120 / 850 = 0.1412 Then times it by 100 = 14.12%

So our increase our about 15% of salaries.. what the hell, then the traders and shops increase the prices to at least 50%?? What’s going on??

They tell you that the government can’t afford to increase salaries when everyone was complaining that the whole of the gulf are increasing their salaries by 50% and 70%…. SO what do they do.. they give foreigners an increase in their salaries. it’s a joke.

So, in any other country.. do they increase salaries of expats??

Remember their are more expats in kuwait than kuwaitis!!

question about “everyone else”… do they have to be working in the government? or will the government force the employers to pay 50 kd?

Lets see if the nawab mp’s will say anything about this. It’s an insult. For the last month they have been slowly bringing down the increase amount from KD350, to KD200 for all, then 2 days ago KD150. Today they announce KD120?? Laish il KD20?? just round it up to the nearest fifty at least.
Or will this yakhareb il mezaniya so that they wont be able to give away our money to other countries, including the KD50 to KD80 million they give to the likes of king of Jordan (not jordan itself). It’s rediculas. We dont have or havent built any electric power stations in kuwait for decades, what does the government do, gives egypt every year hundreds of millions in order for them to specifically build power stations.. I don’t lie.. look all this up for yourselves.. It’s a joke.

Dinar is buying less and less at the stores, our freedoms and liberties are being erroded at a faster speed than you think.. Then they ask why our skilled kuwaitis are leaving kuwait..

Nice, something better than nothing. As for expats that work for government, they are mostly school teachers and MOH staff. Most street workers do not technically work for the government, they work for private companies that have contract with government’s ministries.

To sfsa78
every poor indian or other nationality would NOT hurry to kuwait for a job. that trend is soon gonna vanish. considering the unfair treatment they get here, no pay scale would be worth it( reference to various countries changing their basic pay for domestic workers).That again is another story. Its sad that the government plans for pay increase does not include maids street cleaners, etc for reasons best known to them. Nevertheless the beauty of inflation is, it does affect every soul living here.Considering the fact that most of the economically active population is made up of expats it would only be fair to include them in the pay raise scheme since they are providing both skilled and unskilled labour to the local economy…SHARING would be a very strong word! its not charity!

sfsa78:

“So, in any other country.. do they increase salaries of expats??”

Yes, they do. As a matter of fact, we are living somewhere next to you in Oman. And whenever a salary increase is given to the government employees, expats ARE including. No exceptions. Aren’t they employees as well? So, they do deserve the increase to accompany the increases of life expenses in the country. Also in Emirates and other countries of Gulf, I guess whenever the employees get a salary increase, expats ARE included. ’cause they are also employees.

The only difference in Oman though is that the government does not force the private sector to increase the salaries of their employees. For the past two years, there has been two salary increases in Oman. The first one in the beginning of 2007 which was a 15% increase for the government employees (including expats). But private sector was not forced to increase the salary for their employees. SOME companies did though, on their own account. In the beginning of this year there was also another salary increase, ranging between 5% – 43% (depending on your salary – the higher your salary, the lower your increase). And also expats employees of the government were included. But again private sector not forced to increase their employees salaries, but some companies also did.

You guys are right.. we should at least increase the expat’s salary the same as kuwaiti’s, we should share all our wealth 50-50 with everyone outright. Yes it is a shame maids and others didn’t get this salary increase which would double their salaries. Lets cause more inflation. what i was thinking !?!?.. shame on me!! (sarcasm)

Before the excuse of giving expats jobs in the ministries was that kuwaitis didnt want those jobs as they dont pay much, or kuwaiti’s are unskilled… I think the story has changed now since there is a high unemployment in kuwait, and the increases for the last few years have raised the salaries of even the unwanted jobs, and most of the unemployed have uni degrees, except find it hard to compete with those that have wastas who in-turn are competing for the same limited amount of jobs available.

mocman : thanks for the useful input.. very enlightening comment. Do you wright paragraphs as well? Or do you limit yourself to calling people names? ; *

for the last couple of months the central bank has been cutting people’s credit limits, lowering personal loan amounts, and now this?
i don’t get it.
is there a recession or not?
ok, so you drop the ability to borrow, but increase liquid assets. is that supposed to make people more comfortable?
i see no lesson being learned here.
honestly, i’d rather see the improvements in projects:
ex-pat areas in salmiya and hawalli are deplorable; i haven’t seen efforts aimed at reducing our use of fossil fuels; you name it…
sure, we don’t want to be a plastic economy based on invisible money, then we could get another manakh – crash of ’82. but as individuals, i think we should sacrifice a bit of the extra money and think about our community and our environment, built or otherwise, before we think of ourselves.
this does not improve the (lack of) value of human lives that we see every day.

attrogg ..
The government hasn’t done anything about the lack of water and electricity in kuwait for the past million years… You think they’ll give a damn about expat areas or reducing use of fossil fuels???
The government is too busy trying to segregate schools and canceling women’s political rights.
Welcome to the 3rd world.

for those how dare to complain; if you dont like it (Kuwait), Please do help yourself and leave it.
Mark allowing comments that imply no gratitude to Kuwait shall have true consequences, soon. you see now how Kuwaitis gathered against Huzballah; you and others who hate Kuwait would be NEXT.

wwj….
you are an easy target…
Iam complaining about the government and i am kuwaiti.
The government is chosen by people like me. The government is a servant of the people. We are allowed to critisize whom ever we please.
People like you (wwj) are like the islamist extremist or extremist shia or hizbollah).. you wish any person that critisizes or is an obstacle to the spread of madness and intolerance to leave kuwait.. in order so people like you can run umuck in kuwait turning it into a circus of hate and ignorance.
WWJ… your comment that you make shows absolutely no gratitude towards our kuwaiti constitution. the articles that guarantee freedom of speech, thought, and religion.

You people are scare mongers!! You accuse others that critisize that they are anti kuwaiti, or anti islam, or other crazy altamatom.

WWJ.. I DISAGREE WITH YOU… SUE ME!!

WWJ..kuwait is a democracy… if you dont like people complaining or voicing there opinions… IT IS YOU THAT MUST LEAVE KUWAIT.
Go somewhere where no one is allowed to complain.. Go to SAUDI ARABIA ..i’m sure that that would be your comfort zone..

Dare to complain ??? wtf!! Aren’t you complaining right now?? What a joke…. dare.. woooh!! some real idiots out there.

WWj.. it’ s our gratitude and loyalty to kuwait that makes people want to fend of people like you from messing our country up even further.

MARK.. take no notice of this idiot. Your site is enjoyed and visited by many kuwaitis. We thank you for it.

@sfsa78

Well kuwait does not adhere to traditional norms of a democracy. Why do always have to segregation between expats and Kuwaitis? The expatriates in America and other western countries do integrate with the local population.

Rehan.. so what in your mind is the traditional norms democracy??
ALl democracies went in the same path that kuwait is going through…
All great democracies fought against racims, religious intervention in legislation, corruption etc, etc..
so yes, if there was a traditional path of democracy… kuwait is on it. šŸ™‚

Why am i always segragate between expats and kuwaitis?? i don’t know what your talking about.
You should be asking the government why they are segregating the sexes… i think that is more important.
I am all for mixing of sexes or races and creeds. You should read my earlier posts. šŸ™‚
Lets see how people like you hold out in questioning our morals of creed or race..:
Do you believe children of kuwaiti women married to non kuwaitis should have a kuwaiti citizenship… I DO! šŸ™‚ Eltefrika and ignorance is not from my side.

gratitude? haha make me laugh very much. but rember that like in USA and all that all the peoples pays tax so all salary can be same but not kuwait all money goes out to country like india so can unnerstand why some salry increase more for kuwaiti not expat. is like 120kd fo kuwaiti and 50 for expat like paid 120kd and 70kd tax.

sorry cannot write it so makin more sense.

anyways i know we have some people expat workin and contractor say he pay 100kd minimum but if you ask worker he only get 40kd a month. canot say nothing coz owner is like important famly.

This salary increase is total and utter bullshit, not because it was only 120KD, but because it happened at all. What good will this accomplish? sellers are gonna turn right around and increase their prices, rent is gonna go up, and many other things will do the same.

Inflation isn’t tackled by pumping in more money into the system, and cutting interest rates. In fact it is the complete opposite that should happen.

Furthermore, what is also hurting us is the very thing that is making us rich, oil prices affect the cost of most products around the world, and the higher oil goes, the higher the cost of producing the goods, which are in turn sold to us at higher prices.

Add to that the fact that Kuwait is still pegged to a currency basket that is dominated by the dollar, and you see that prices of goods not coming from the US have gone up even more, because the dollar has weakened against most other currencies, and as a result we have not seen our currency go up against the other big currencies as much as it should, so the price of goods from Europe and Asia have risen because of that as well as the point above.

And please don’t even get me started on those wanting the government to pay off all the citizens loans, which is the mother of all crappy ideas.

BTW a quick, simple and very inaccurate calculation: The population of Kuwaiti nationals is around 1.2million. Of those lets say half are in the workforce or retired, so that makes 600K people who will be affected by the salary increase. These people will get 120KD extra per month for 12 months a year. Total Cost of Kuwaitis only : 600,000*12*120 = 864,000,000KD/year….about 850million EACH YEAR!!! you’re telling me that this is the best way to spend that money. Give it to people and have them give it back to the sellers as prices continue to increase?

Why not use that money to build better hospitals, pay for better teachers for our kids, build some freaking power stations so that a country as rich as ours doesnt have to call people at home and ask them to shut off the AC’s when its 50 degrees outside.

I’m not saying that if they hadn’t done this the government would have used that money for those projects, but why not demonstrate and rally around causes that help the country move forward and help secure better futures for our children, rather than rallying around causes that only help the individual here and now and are temporary to say the least.

Sorry for the long post, but i had to get that off my chest.

no offence to the kuwaitis, correct me if i’m wrong. the way i see it, its the expat who runs most of all the critical positions and jobs here in kuwait. from the lowly KADAMAS / MAID (as most kuwaitis say it) up to the ENGINEERS OF OIL & ENERGY SECTORS, MANAGER OF BANKING & FINANCE, RESTAURANTS, NURSES AND DOCTORS, ARCHITECTS, WAITERS, CUSTOMER CARE PEOPLE may it be lebanese, americans,filipinos europeans, indian, bangladesh, thailanders, chinese, koreans etc.

lets face it, kuwaitis doens;t want to work, they just want to accept and recieve money. we respect the constitutions & culture of the kuwaitis. but please give die respect for the people/expatz who are working here to give and deliver services for all kuwaitis.

HAPPY LIBERATION DAY!!!!

@ hellraiser

“why the segregation, 120KD for Kuwaitis and less than half for expats”

That’s cos you dont feel the inflation man!
Did you know how much Starbucks have increased the price of their mocha ??? Do you feel that inflation every morning ? NO ! None of the expats feel it every morning.
That’s why 120 for Kuwaitis and the 50 for the expats.
So simple !

I absolutely refuse to buy my coffee from starfucks, a cup of coffee for nearly KD2.. has the world gone mad?!? laish?? Suj ga6een 3alaina.. to convince ourselves that a cup of coffee is ok, there must be something wrong with us… remember that in africa kd1 can feed a family for a week. It makes me sick and angry.
I wonder what it actual costs of a cup of coffee.

https://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/11/black_gold_a_co.php
Black Gold: A Coffee Film That Has Starbucks Scared

Treehuggers have probably heard about fair trade coffee, but many aren’t familiar with it ā€“ and even more don’t quite know what fair trade means, or why it’s necessary. Despite the fact that a coffee crisis has been financially devastating coffee growers around the world, even as western corporations make a lot of money from coffee sales, the problem still doesn’t get much coverage in the mainstream media.

How come the increase thing only applies to Kuwaitis working anywhere and public sector expats? Looking at it from the other side makes it seem kinda funny; imagining some officials in a meeting concluding their meeting with “So we’re gonna give everyone a raise EXCEPT private sector expats”. An evil grin included!

So now what, when I’m going to the supermarket for some bread and eggs I should take along my work permit and civil ID to prove that I’m one of the unlucky guys who’s NOT getting a raise so that I can get eggs for a lower price? šŸ˜€

Salary hike = Inflation. It makes no sense to ask for more, because whatever increase you are asking for will eventually buy you the same basket of goods. To make living costs lower, the central bank needs to float the currency, in which case you will be getting more dollars for your salary. It keeps raw materials cheap (thus dropping selling prices), and expats happy as it translates into more in their national currency.

Stop asking for more hikes and just ask the central bank to drop the peg.

sacrasticriddler: I dont do Starbucks.
WW for those how dare to complain; if you dont like it (Kuwait), Please do help yourself and leave it.

I believe democracy is an Alien concept to you and no one here is discussing whether we like this place or not. Throwing money to people means automatic inflation, once the price of the barell drop inflation will remain, then government cant pay the overinflated salaries, then you hit something called an economical crisis.

And then smart people like you will be leaving the country to find a living elsewhere.

Equalizer is right. Giving people money won’t help the inflation problem. When Kuwait University teachers and profs got a 33% raise in 2006, everything went up. It’s simple economics. First were the car rentals and leases. Before I could rent a crap car for 80 KD/month. This year, the cheapest rental was 115KD, and the car is even crappier. When the faculty in Shuwaikh housing was told they would have to move out because the buildings were unsafe, all apartment rentals around the Kuwait went up by 50 to 60%. I used to rent a 1 bedroom in a new building in Salmiya for 160 KD. Not anymore.

Coming from a non-socialist state, I find it odd that a government would just gives money to its citizen. Hey, I’m not complaining, but it is just weird. Something for nothing? It doesn’t breed initiative, creativity or ingenuity. As for Kuwaitis getting more money than ex-pats, it is something of a burn, but it is their country and their oil. Don’t ever forget: that no matter what your job (doctor, lawyer, teacher), you are still just one of the guest workers.

I’ve decided that if we actually DO get the salary increase, I am going to give my maid more money each month.

More madness from our dear friends the islamic extremist mp’s:

Need to make ‘military’ recruitment mandatory
KUWAIT CITY, Feb 25: Islamist MPs have called on the government to re-introduce the mandatory conscription system but in accordance with new rules and principles that conform to the current political and social realities, reports Al-Nahar quoting reliable sources as saying.
According to sources, the parliamentary request came after the Parliamentary Committee for Negative Phenomena and Conducts observed that a large number of Kuwaiti youth are adopting some foreign and strange habits which do not go well with the values of the Kuwaiti society. Sources added that implementation of mandatory military recruitment will go a long way to change those negative habits.
The MPs also urged the government to grant moral and material incentives to attract Kuwaiti youth to the military and to serve the motherland.

https://www.arabtimesonline.com/client/pagesdetails.asp?nid=12836&ccid=9

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