Kuwait announces lifting work from home mandate from August 1

KUWAIT CITY: The Kuwait authorities have announced ending the work from home mandate of the government employees starting from August 1.

Kuwait’s Director-General of the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM), Ahmed Al Mousa, issued a circular on Sunday, stating that it will lift the work from home mandate starting August 1.

According to Gulf News, all government employees are required to return to normal working hours in person from 7:30 am to 2:30 pm. Those exempt from the decision are pregnant women and people who have chronic illnesses.

“Employees will need to punch in to prove they came on time and stayed for the mandated period,” Al Mousa said. The decision comes as Kuwait is starting to slowly open up and people are returning to some sense of normalcy.

The Kuwait had put in place several restrictions and a curfew between March 2020 and July 2020 besides allowing the employees to work from home.

Later from July 1, the employees started to gradually return to work as per the country’s five-stage plan to return to normalcy.

As Kuwait saw a spike in COVID-19 cases at the beginning of the year, the Cabinet of Ministers issued a decision to reduce the number of employees so that the capacity in the governmental sector does not exceed 30 per cent, while the private sector does not exceed 50 per cent.

Several businesses in the private sector have returned to 100 per cent capacity months ago.