A total of 8,641 workers from the restaurant industry had left Kuwait between March 2020 and March 2021, the Arabic newspaper Al-Qabas report says.

The restaurant and hotel sector suffered a severe shortage of specialized workers and delivery workers in light of the continued closure and ban on recruitment from abroad due to the Corona pandemic for over a year.

Salaries of specialized workers in the food industry have more than doubled due to the shortage of labour in the market, the report said, quoting the head of the Restaurants Federation Fahd Al-Arbash. "The ban on recruitment of workers from abroad and their shortage in the labour market contributed to the increase in salaries and their transfer between companies," he said. The labour in the local market is not specialized in working in the restaurant industry, and it is not easy to train them to join.