Unemployment crisis..Experts describe disease and medicine
Amman Today
publish date 2022-01-06 17:02:43
Jordan News
Emad Abdel Karim
Despite the important political events that the country is going through, especially the constitutional amendments, the unemployment file was present in most of the royal meetings, whether official or popular, the last of which was His Majesty’s meeting with the President of the Senate and the heads of committees in the House, where the royal affirmation came that addressing unemployment requires courageous national decisions and cooperation between the public and private sectors.
The royal speech in this political circumstance refers to the government’s failure and neglect of this dangerous file, in which the rates and numbers of unemployment reached unprecedented numbers for reasons related to the weakness and decline of the economy, and others related to the impact of the Corona pandemic on different sectors, especially the labor sector.
The drop in unemployment rates has become a preoccupation for many sectors of the state, but without any progress or achievement, as not a day is without statements and comments by officials and unofficials in which they affirm the danger of unemployment rates remaining at their high levels, and their unbridled desire to reduce them to acceptable levels, but the question remains whether rates will decrease Unemployment as a result of government policies announced and expressed in plans, programs and statements that are issued from time to time, and we do not see any effect of them?
Experts believe that stimulating economic growth will reduce unemployment rates, but it needs parallel policies to become inclusive growth that contributes to reducing it in a tangible and sustainable way. In addition, we need to improve working conditions in sectors and economic activities in which Jordanians are reluctant to work due to low wage levels. In which.
A problem in economic policies and another in education
For his part, the expert in the labor sector and head of the Workers’ House Center, Hamada Abu Najma, said that the unemployment file is linked to many ministries and institutions affiliated with the government apparatus, and it is not within the competence of the Ministry of Labor alone, as the Ministry of Economy, Investment, Planning and others participate in it, and therefore all of these ministries are required to work on finding solutions. And programs to get out of the unemployment crisis that afflicted Jordan.
He pointed out, in statements to the online newspaper, “Akhbar Al-Jordan”, that unfortunately, all of these institutions are absent from the issue of unemployment and from the policies of the labor market or economic policies that are aimed at providing job opportunities for unknown reasons, stressing the need for a national emergency plan that simulates the problem of unemployment.
He explained that the unemployment crisis in Jordan indicates that we have a problem in economic policies and in attracting investments from abroad, in addition to the most prominent and most important problem, which is a problem in educational policies, as there are large numbers of graduates annually in specializations that are not required in the labor market.
He added that it is necessary to work on approving an educational policy that directs the largest segment of male and female students to technical specializations and refraining from humanitarian specializations, which reports from the competent authorities in the fields of employment and work indicate that they are stagnant specializations and do not provide job opportunities. To 80% of the unemployed women are university graduates.
He explained that what indicates a problem in economic policies is the presence of more than 400,000 unemployed people in Jordan. Employers in Jordan complain of a shortage of labor cadres for them, which forces them to bring them from abroad and neighboring countries, and this reinforces the gap between the market need and the nature of the disciplines taught in Universities.
Unemployment rates higher than the Arab level
Abu Najma confirmed that unemployment rates in Jordan, which amounted to 25%, which is the highest in the country’s history, exceeded their Arab rates, as unemployment rates at the Arab level did not exceed 11%, which indicates that these rates cannot be tolerated, and urgent measures are necessary. At the same time, programs are concerned with all official institutions, research in the problems of the private sector, and a solution to strengthen partnership to provide job opportunities.
He said that the state has no choice, and it is facing this serious crisis and its danger on the economic and social level as well, as long-term unemployment among youth groups may pose a danger to society in general, and here the concerned authorities must find solutions in exceptional ways and tools and not by traditional methods.
The structural structure of the economy contributed to the highest unemployment rates
For his part, the expert and economic analyst, Dr. Raad Al-Tal, said that linking the record high unemployment rates that we have reached in Jordan with the structural structure of the Jordanian economy, we will clearly see that this economic structure has contributed to Jordan reaching the highest unemployment rates in the region after Lebanon, which achieved the highest rate of 36%. unemployment in the vicinity of neighboring countries.
Al-Tal added: “The Corona pandemic has affected various economic sectors, and the services sector, which occupies nearly 70% of the workforce in Jordan, according to World Bank figures, was the most affected.”
Al-Tal said that the economic growth rate of 2% indicates that the job opportunities created in the Jordanian labor market, according to the figures of the Department of Statistics, ranged during the last decade between 45 and 60 thousand annual job opportunities, most of which are created by the private sector, which cannot absorb the increasing numbers. For the labor force and for new entrants to the Jordanian labor market, whose number is estimated at approximately 150,000 annually, and therefore what we need, according to one study, is for the real economic growth rate of GDP to reach a minimum of about 6% so that we can provide between 120 and 150 thousand opportunities annually.
Al-Tal added that the structure and structure of the Jordanian economy, which is mainly focused and dependent on one sector without a (relatively) balanced diversification between the economic sectors, exploits the competitive advantage of other sectors in Jordan, in addition to focusing on the economic growth figures of the sectors without objectively looking at the most employing and accommodating sectors. Creating job opportunities in the Jordanian market has contributed significantly to the aggravation of the economic problem in Jordan and a record rise in unemployment rates among its youth.
Transportation by applications attracts university graduates
In recent years, the high rates of unemployment prompted many university graduates to work in delivery services, taxi drivers and smart applications, due to the absence of any job opportunities or the availability of development projects capable of attracting them.
And press reports and videos on social media showed that a large number of university graduates and holders of scientific and literary specializations were forced to work through smart delivery applications after not having any opportunity to get a job in their field of specialization, in addition to the impact of the Corona pandemic and the recession in the local economy, It prevented them from finding job opportunities and that their specializations did not enable them to work because of saturation in most of the specializations, whether in the public and private sectors.
In addition, the difficult living conditions that most Jordanian families suffer from pushed many of their children to work in professions that are not commensurate with their university attainment, as some social media published about young people working on passenger delivery applications and delivering restaurant orders while holding engineering degrees and other scientific disciplines to secure their expenses and support themselves. Although the salary is less than the minimum wage and hardly enough for their monthly needs.
Is it sufficient to stop the development of stagnant specializations to reduce unemployment?
Although the Higher Education Council stopped the creation of saturated, stagnant or duplicate majors in universities, as a measure to alleviate the problem of unemployment among university students, these majors still receive thousands of students annually in universities, which brought the total job applications in the Civil Service Commission to more than 423,000 , while the Bureau needs eight years to appoint graduates for one year, and the Higher Education Council is supposed to take a package of measures to reduce the number of graduates in saturated and stagnant majors, as public universities include 554 majors, a large number of which are classified within the category of saturated and stagnant majors.
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Jordan News
Source : اخبار الاردن