ABSTRACT

Kuwait’s oil boom attracted from all over the Middle East anybody who had goods or services to sell. Many were professional people, offering skills which Kuwaitis had not yet learned -teachers, engineers, doctors, nurses, administrative staff for the growing civil service – from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Britain, with hundreds of dispossessed Palestinians. Many more were unskilled labourers for whom the new building programme seemed to offer unlimited jobs. The latter arrived from all the neighbouring states, and as the word went out of high wages to be earned, also from farther away, Muscat, Baluchistan, South Arabia, Aden.