KUWAIT: Although Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have not been affected by the current political upheavals sweeping the Middle East, one sector of the countries' economies have been hit hard; human resources. There is a continuous decline in the pursuit of job opportunities of labor workers from the Philippines, said Philippine Labor Attache Vivo Vidal. In an interview with the Kuwait Times yesterday he explained that the interest of Kuwaiti employers, especially in the Filipino workforce, has always been great but that a "fear factor" has contributed to the decline of deploying Filipino workers to the Middle East.

The crisis in the Middle East has affected workers' decision to accept job prospects here, at least for now," he said, specifically mentioning Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Qatar. "These countries are not affected by the unrest of neighboring countries but since they are part of the Middle East, if you ask Filipino workers to come and work, they would think twice," he said. The decline, he observed, is obvious in both domestic and skilled laborers.

On the other hand, Vidal argued that 'old timers' in the Middle East are definitely more likely to take a risk, unlike newly-hired workers. "These new workers contemplate whether to push through on a plan or not. You can never blame them since they have witnessed the hardship of being displaced from a job abroad, such as Filipino workers from Libya," he cited.

Before the unrest in Libya erupted, the country employed some 26,000 Filipino workers and the Philippine government has struggled to bring them back. In fact, the government has even requested international help to rescue their workers from Libya. Now that many returned to the Philippines, the government faces another challenge-job placements. There are workers accommodated to government projects but a number of them have to be redeployed to countries such as Taiwan, Malaysia and Hong Kong as the Philippines continue to face troubling unemployment rates.

The Philippine Department of Labor and Employment admitted that hiring Filipino workers has declined in the past several months due to the continuing political unrest in the Middle East and Libya. Philippine Labor Secretary, Rosalinda Baldoz was quoted by a Manila newspaper, saying that there is, "No immediate solution to the Middle East crisis and that fewer Filipino workers will be deployed this year.

On a slightly different note, the slowdown of recruitment from Nepal seems mostly attributed to the recently introduced new passport system, said Pushpa Raj Bhattarai, Second Secretary at the Nepalese Embassy of Kuwait. Earlier, Nepalese workers could apply for passports and get it in three days. "Since the launch of the new system it takes time, about one month to get the passport," he said. "In terms of employers' interest however, the job orders are increasing day by day and the demand for our workers is really huge, even at the on-going Middle East political turmoil." The Indonesian Ambassador to Kuwait, Ferry Adamhar noted that his country has experienced no decline. He said that Indonesia only sends skilled laborers to Kuwait, pointing out that there is still a demand for Indonesian workers in Kuwait regardless of regional turmoil. - Kuwait Times