Banks Ignite Competition to Hire Kuwaitis and Woo Top Talent for Relocation... With Bonuses and Promotions
- Unprecedented moves to attract talent through additional incentives and compensation
- National workforce requires recalibration of quotas after revocation of citizenships
- Banks prefer recruiting trained, ready-to-deploy talent to save effort and waiting time
- Demand spans all departments, with growing focus on “Credit,” “Compliance,” and “Digitalization” staff
- Number of Kuwaitis in banks surged over a quarter-century from 1,543 in 2000 to 11,452 employees
If you are a Kuwaiti man or woman, specifically from the youth demographic, working at a local bank, and have a profile on the professional social network LinkedIn, do not be surprised if you receive a message from a competing bank requesting an interview. Nor should you be overly startled if the bank offers you a transition to another institution with a one-time bonus of up to 30% above your current salary, provided you are among the standout and highly sought-after professionals in the banking sector.
The foregoing reflects a reality experienced by all local banks for some time, as they appear to have entered a new, fierce arena of competition. Alongside their escalating efforts to expand their customer base and increase loan and deposit market shares, a parallel banking strategy has recently emerged focused on talent acquisition. This strategy targets national talents, both men and women, with a noticeable increase in the pace at which most banks are offering additional incentives to employees at other banks to lure them to work for them.
To approve the recruitment of any Kuwaiti national from outside the bank, four basic criteria are required: possessing professional experience preferably not less than five years; the ability to pass assessments; demonstrating ambition and talent; and having a good reputation.
While the rising demand encompasses all bank departments, it is particularly intensifying among workers in the credit, compliance, and digitalization sectors—those keeping pace with the artificial intelligence revolution. These professionals represent the wings of bank executives in market expansion and in sustaining competitive edge against other banks, while ensuring compliance with local and international laws and regulations, foremost among them anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing systems.
Naturally, the doubling demand from banks for national workforce is not a new trend. This direction has been growing in the banking sector for years. It suffices to note that data reveals a significant shift in the sector’s workforce structure over the last quarter-century. The number of Kuwaitis working in banks was approximately 1,543 in 2000, before reaching 11,452 by the end of last June, reflecting the sector’s expanding capacity to absorb national talent.
Furthermore, workers in the banking sector account for approximately one-quarter of the national workforce in the private sector registered with the Public Authority for Manpower, excluding the oil sector and those covered under Article 5.
However, the recent development lies in the rapid movements led by banks in recent periods, aggressively targeting Kuwaiti cadres from competitors, particularly from middle management departments.
Perhaps what reinforces the banking sector’s open appetite for recruiting Kuwaitis is the growing need to maintain the high localization rate for which banks are known. After reaching 79% of the total workforce in the sector, this ratio requires recalibration following the exclusion of employees whose citizenships were revoked from the localization quota. This comes at a time when collective banking demand is rising for staff in retail and corporate banking, as well as specialists in technology and automation.
Officials at some banks believe it is more cost-effective to recruit trained, ready-to-deploy talent from other banks, paying a premium over their current salaries, rather than waiting to train new hires or promote employees from lower levels. This approach takes into account the high investment cost in human resources, which requires substantial spending on training and qualifying staff in collaboration with major universities and training institutes in the region and worldwide. Additionally, it leverages the experience of recruited employees and the institutional knowledge and expertise that mid-level managers bring when moving from one bank to a competitor.
To avoid embarrassing the transferring employee or the recruiting bank, some resort to “unconventional” methods, bypassing traditional recruitment agencies in favor of headhunting via LinkedIn. If an agreement is reached, the employee can either transfer directly or resign without disclosing their intention to move to another entity, only to be appointed later at their new destination.
In this regard, interviews are conducted with targeted employees. If they successfully pass the required assessments, they are offered positions at the bank in exchange for average salary and bonus increases ranging between 7% and 10% after promotion. This translates to a total compensation increase averaging up to 30% in some banks’ offers, compared to what the targeted high-caliber employee previously earned.
This exceptional movement among some employees has led to the creation of attractive incentives, most notably additional bonuses and compensation packages, signaling the intense competition to recruit Kuwaitis working in mid-level banking management.
In practice, this reality has created vacancies in the middle management departments of some banks that cannot be filled by redistributing tasks or even by temporarily borrowing expertise from existing staff. Instead, it requires hiring experienced professionals at higher salaries and benefits. This has forced all banks to participate in the heated competition for Kuwaiti employees, particularly the qualified ones, sometimes prompting adjustments to the salary and benefits scales for citizen employees in an effort to maintain national employment ratios and enhance local competitiveness.
While banks are expanding their recruitment of citizens, bankers warn that an unregulated open-market competition exposes them to several risks. The most prominent is the escalation of the “whoever wants to retain their staff must pay more” dynamic, leading to human resource costs spiraling beyond acceptable financial ceilings. This has a tangible impact on operating budgets, alongside the risk of accelerating promotions in middle management without proper merit.
Conversely, proponents of free competition in recruitment argue that mid-level banking management represents a segment characterized by professional maturity. These individuals carefully evaluate their career moves, seeking professional development opportunities, an attractive work environment, new responsibilities, and challenges that enhance their practical experience, thereby enabling them to achieve the highest levels of job satisfaction.
They point out that Kuwait’s labor market is a free capitalist system that guarantees equal employment opportunities and the freedom to choose the appropriate job or employer. Furthermore, labor law does not prohibit employees from moving from one bank to another or to other entities. They added that expansions in the banking sector and available opportunities require acquiring additional expertise, especially in the era of AI transformation, where there is an urgent and pressing need for more specialized and skilled employees—a niche that the mid-level segment in any bank can fill.
Moreover, they argue that the exchange of expertise and employee mobility within banks enriches performance in the sector and enhances employee experience, benefiting the institution, the worker, and the sector as a whole.
