For those of you IN Kuwait, your help/advice needed please

1) About teaching : In schools u need a to be a qualified teacher with Bachelor certificates and even training certificates, but i think in Kinder garten , they wont ask u certificates, but even some very good nurseries they use to ask your training experiances, still u have a chance to get a job in nurseries ,,,,,,,, try ur luck ,, god is with u

2) secondly u have 7 years exp in clothing section and in store management , try that , it will give u a good salary ,but working hours ,its like 8 hrs or im not sure,,,,,,,,any wayz u have a chance in this section , until and unless u have to try and we EB friends are here to help u out .

and more replies are coming at this topic , so u dont need to be worried or scared about anything , come through the proper channel and try for a job which suits you and ur family

regards

Hi MrsIsmail,

I am not particularly sure about the teaching job. But there are quite a lot of retail job openings that I come across while am online.

You might want to check www.bayt.com, www.gulftalent.com, www.naukrigulf.com

The above mentioned are job portals where you might have to register yourself and apply for these jobs. But I would suggest to stick with your brother-in-laws comment of you coming here and looking out as most of these companies take time to complete their online recruitment cycle.

Here's what you can do to check your demand in the retail job market. Maintain a word document with the list of retail players in Kuwait (you can easily get this information online) along with their contact information. Try reaching them by telephone to check on the availability of a job opening. They will generally have requirements at all times.

Good luck

Cheers!!!
Jebez

well MrsIsmail, would u like the sugar coated answer, or blunt?

i'll try to be equal on both fronts.

in a nutshell - Kuwait is a GREAT place if u come here WITH a job in tow i.e. u were contacted to come for work. as in any case, there is a high cost of living in that u do not own property and hence have to pay rent, which is your biggest expense in Kuwait. hence, having a job to pay the rent is a necessity, as opposed to spending from your savings until you find a job.

there is a difference between someone looking for a job whilst unemployed, and someone looking for a job whilst they currently have one. there is less pressure on the latter.

Now I do not blame your brother in law for painting a perfect picture for u, however reality is a bit different. the concept of "finding a job on the day" is rarely the case. in terms of education, u can ask all our resident teachers (start with SaharEl, she is VERY helpful indeed and teaches Kindergarten if i am not mistaken) how they got their jobs. unless u see urself as working in a nursery.

now, being British, u can walk in to Kuwait at your leisure. Your Egyptian husband however will need one of two things: a) a job i.e. business visa or b) visit visa from his sister/brother (altho that is really at the discretion of the MoI employee).

yes. given the current situation in Egypt, it is advisable to head for the hills for the foreseeable future. however, planning makes perfect.

it is easier for employees to find jobs whilst in Kuwait as opposed to being abroad and looking (the employer has to incur a cost of making the business visa for u etc) but whilst in kuwait u'll be paying rent. so u can see the cycle here, right?

i really want to be helpful to u, but the decision of uprooting is very complex. please ensure that u look at every possible venue in terms of cost and benefit.

Allah Kareem

Thanks for the quick responses already guys and for sure I want the most honest of answers

I will clarify that I definitely don't want to be teaching anyone over the age of 6 so I'm not talking about 'proper' teaching jobs. Just my knowledge of how nurseries/kindergarten works is limited. I have loved my current job more than I thought I would, but I am really only doing it as there's nothing else going on for me here.
I have spent the afternoon looking more into the retail aspect and there are some real possibilities for me, (considering the vast shopping malls I'm not surprised!) now just need to start comparing salaries etc.

Legacy thanks for bringing up visas. That would be my next lot of questions but what you said is what I knew already. But I had heard that an invite from his sister/bro in law would incur a high cost to them? And that it would be better if once I am settled with job/visas then I invite him as my spouse? What do you know of this? Was hoping to pop into the Kuwait Embassy on my next visit to Cairo to see what they have to say.
Thanks for mentioning SaharEl, I will try to get in contact. I appreciate all advice that you have to give so Insha'Allah I will be there sooner rather than later.

If I do go, with or without hubby, then I will be staying with my sister in law so at least rental costs would not be a worry while I set myself up.

Thanks again for your responses and I await anymore helpful advice from you lovely EB people

here's the thing:

you being British, you get a visa on arrival (for up to 3 months). Your husband being Egyptian does not. his only options are either finding a job here from there and getting a business visa which is converted to residency, or getting a familial "invitation" visa (valid for 3 months) subject to MoI approval.

unfortunately, i hate to rain on ur parade, but u as a woman working in Kuwait cannot sponsor your husband, the opposite is true. if he were working here, u can be sponsored by him. ur child too. wives and children are sponsored by the husband and not vice versa.

hence, even if u were to come here and find a job, and get residency, ur husband would still need to go thru the exact same process. meaning that u would both be living in different countries for quite some time until both ends meet.

see where i am going with this?

and on a side note, family invitation is only 5-15KD or something. I believe the high cost you might have heard would be the purchase of a residency, under a phony paper company which has now become illegal in Kuwait, that used to run in the 1000-1500KD mark.

how it works is that a Kuwaiti would establish a paper company and request ministry to issue permits for 10 employees, he'd then "sell" those permits to people wishing to come to kuwait who would technically be under his sponsorship, he would pay them money that they return to him, and in return they are free to stay in kuwait for a year to look for a job.

what happens is once they find it, the owner would refuse to transfer their residency for a second payment.

lots of people used this method to get to kuwait, it is very expensive as u pay a high amount to the phoney kafeel (sponsor) as well as rent, with no income.

WOW! Seriously Thank You Legacy! all this time the option of 'you get a job and invite hubby' has been mentioned and now its not even true! I'm glad I find this out now!

But at least the family invite is not as expensive as they think so its an option - praying that theres nice people at the MoI!

Legacy you are a wealth of information - an asset to this forum!

thank you MrsIsmail

Just doing what i can to help out, afterall, I am billing myself as the go-to guy for expats (here)

Nice write up on you Ol' Witty One
Good to see someone enjoy what they do and help others out AND doing it free of charge!

Ok time to get serious. Had a terrible migraine last night so couldn't focus.
Legacy can you provide a site where it says that I couldn't invite my husband to join me. In my own searches I haven't been able to produce anything.
To be honest I'm getting quite disheartened and I'm annoyed at myself for believing people who have made this process sound rather simple

My husband is like me in the fact that he has no qualifications. Even though he has had many jobs since he left school none of them in a specific skilled profession.
He already has a friend who has been in Kuwait for a few years and had a good job until they didn't renew his visa (can't remember his profession) and I think its been about 9months now and his still looking for new employment.
So my opinion is if its not good for him then my husband won't have any luck finding a job that will provide the visa either

oooh I feel that migraine coming back ...

Salamat

i hate being the bearer of bad news, but here and here

Hi there,

Those 2 links are very interesting. Thanks for posting them Legacy. The second one suggests that there are situations where female expat teachers can sponsor their husbands! I had not come across that before. It's a shame they couldn't be a bit more descriptive when explaining that. I'd read (on a Kuwait Embassy website) that it was not possible at all for a woman to sponsor her husband. There you go. Maybe there are exceptions? It would be good to know more about what the Arabtimesonline was using as its source.

Thanks, as always Legacy, for your efforts. JazakAllahukheir.

My pleasure K2K, Arabtimesonline is the first english daily newspaper in Kuwait, so they have their legal team respond to questions posted by expats.

I would suggest both you and MrsIsmail inquire directly from them as to how a female teacher can go about sponsoring her husband. unfortunately my lawyer connections are all commercial, as opposed to civil, law "/

Done. Just wrote them a question about this issue. I'll have to keep checking to see if an answer pops up.

So you are telling me that all expat women in Kuwait are either single or their partners get a visa through getting a job too?!

yes it is quite bad news for us

Im sorry MrsIsmail

Hello,

I haven't visited this forum for a while. I hope things are clearer for you now MrsIsmail.

You're right about the fact that some schools are really desperate for teachers and they just need a native English speaker. However, some schools have specific requirements (i.e.: you need to have a Bachelor's in Education for KG, Elementary or High School depending on which grade level you're applying for and you need to have a teaching certificate).

I think you should still give it a try though, you never know. But I do know that most of the time, the Ministry of Education of Kuwait might not approve some applicants simply because they don't have a teaching certificate or a background in Education.

I'm not too sure about retail management. There are a lot of expats who start up their own businesses though and they seem to be usually quite successful.

Legacy gave you some really good advice and I agree that you should search while in Egypt first rather than just coming to Kuwait and searching while in Kuwait as your brother-in-law suggested. It's best to be certain that you'll have a job and a place to live in before you come.

That being said, I'm telling you should give it a try but when it comes to visas and sponsoring, I don't really know what the process is, what's allowed and what's not. But I just reread Legacy's interesting information about visas and sponsoring and all (I'm learning from this at the same time cause I didn't know much about this topic, thanks Legacy!) and seems like he's given you information about that.

Wish you all the best Mrs Ismail. I hope you will be able to figure something out inshallah. If I can help in anything else, let me know.