Some 100,000 new people have started calling Qatar “home” since last July, nearly 70 percent of them men, according to new Qatar Statistics Authority figures.

In that time period, the country’s population jumped six percent to 1.7 million people, a more rapid increase than the 4.3 percent Qatar saw between 2010 and 2011.

The gender breakdown for the current population, 1.3 million men and 419,374 women, continues to be stark, in large part due to the growing influx of male workers.

The Peninsula reports:

Manpower recruitment agencies, while confirming the rise in the number of foreign workers arriving in the country said they were anticipating a further increase next year, with the launch of several more infrastructure projects ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2022.

“We have noticed an increase of more than 20 percent in the number of newly recruited workers in the past one year. Majority of the new recruits are from South Asian countries, mainly Nepal who have been brought to work in the construction sector,” an official of a leading manpower agency told this newspaper yesterday.

Despite the gender imbalance, Qatar this year raised the minimum salary limit for expats who want to bring their families here from QR8,000 to QR10,000 a month.

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Credit: Photo by Tidewater Muse