100,000 unemployed graduates each year

The Minister of Economy of the Government of Libyan National Reconciliation, Ali al-Issawi, told the "New Arab" that 100,000 graduates of Libyan universities were not finding employment in the labor market, because weak development investment in the general budget and employment in the public sector. He added that 22,000 investment projects had been suspended since 2011, although the proportion of completion in some of them could reach 80%.

He explained that the value of development projects amounted to 160 billion dinars a year (a dollar was worth 1.4 dinars). Al-Issawi called for focusing attention on small and medium-sized enterprises in order to create new jobs and to be financed by the Loan Guarantee Fund over the next period in order to revive the economy. ;economic activity.

Development allowances since 2012 were very small compared to the budgets of successive governments.

He pointed out that the 2010 budget allocated about 51% of funds to development and had fallen to 28% in 2012, 29% in 2013 and 9.5% in 2014. It continued to fall to 8% in 2016 and 10% in 2017. Decrease of 10.8% in 2018.

In recent years, the number of workers in the labor market has increased in various Libyan regions, particularly in remote and southern regions, due to the lack of government posts. Libya has lost accurate statistics on unemployment rates due to political division and security chaos in the country. The law prohibits a government employee from obtaining two jobs, even on a contract basis.

The violations are revealed in this framework through the national numbering system, which allows to establish a unique reference number for every citizen of the Libyan state, used to access the basic data of citizens. The national figure is used to pay wages, thus reducing duplication.

A large group of citizens suffer from underemployment, a large group of government employees are paid without providing productive work, as well as the so-called "staff on leave" of 45,000 employees who receive a monthly salary without training and development. In the labor market. In addition to the presence of 13,000 employees in foreign companies who worked in development projects and who left the country since 2011, the Treasury paid their salaries.

Libya spends $ 30 billion a year to cover public spending in the form of subsidies, wages and public spending. The public sector employs 1.8 people and represents about 25 percent of the country's population. The minimum wage in Libya is 450 dinars or equivalent to 321 dollars. Note that wages are delayed from the disbursement date for two months or more due to lack of liquidity in commercial banks.

The size of the general budget or known financial arrangements in Libya for the year 2019 raises to 46.8 billion dinars ($ 33.6 billion), based on a production of oil estimated at 1.2 million barrels per day at an average price of $ 60 per barrel. Crude oil exports represent 96% of the total exports of the Libyan economy.