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- Nagham Kassem and Serena Gocke
- BBC News Arabic
Women and people with disabilities most affected among groups losing their jobs
From his balcony overlooking a narrow street in suburban Cairo, Ali Sharda appears, talking about things that have become a luxury of life after years of prolonged unemployment. “There is no meat, no chicken. These foods cannot be bought, I only eat them when I am invited by relatives.
Ali, in his thirties, divorced with a diploma in hospitality studies, spends most of his day scouring the internet and newspapers in search of a job to support his only child. But his dream is to find a job that matches the dreams of millions of unemployed young men in the Arab region.
The recent report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) and the International Labor Organization indicated that the Arab region has the highest unemployment rate in the world. . ILO statistics estimate that more than 26% of young people were included in the category of unemployed in the Arab world before the Corona crisis.
Ali has applied for jobs at many companies and hotels, hoping to find employment in his field, but says his efforts have been rejected for a variety of reasons ranging from “intermediaries to insufficient educational certificates or to l ‘appearance and dress, ”he says.
More than a quarter of young people in the Arab world are unemployed
“a chronic problem”
Although the Covid-19 epidemic has exacerbated unemployment rates around the world, the problem in the Arab world is older and deeper than that. The number of unemployed in the Arab region before the outbreak of Corona reached more than 14 million people in 2019, according to the International Labor Organization. While the Arab world only lost the equivalent of 15 million jobs in the last quarter of 2020 due to the pandemic.
According to Dr Ruba Jaradat, regional director of the International Labor Organization, “the Covid-19 crisis has increased pressure on the labor market and considerably increased unemployment rates”, and continues: “There is no doubt that the region is unable to create employment opportunities for a growing population, due to inflation in the public sector on the one hand, and on the other hand, the productivity of the private sector is low.
However, the reasons are not limited to this, as conflicts, wars and political instability “have led to the reluctance of many investors and individuals to invest in the Arab region”.
published photo, International Labor Organization
female unemployment
Despite the prevalence of unemployment in the Arab world, some groups are more vulnerable than others. The report, titled “Towards a Productive and Inclusive Path for All: Creating Job Opportunities in the Arab Region”, highlights the state of inequalities in Arab labor markets.
He pointed out the inability to create sufficient and equitable employment opportunities, despite the small education gender gap, due to the inability of the Arab labor market to do so, especially the formal sector.
The female unemployment rate increased by 3.4% during the period 2000-2020, and the gap between men and women in managerial positions has widened nearly four times compared to the gap between them in the shares of full-time work.
Nadia, an Egyptian widow in her fifties, has been among those who have been looking for work for years. Nadia seeks to provide for her six daughters, but faces discrimination from employers: “Young people are made redundant, so how are they going to find work for older women?
Despite this, Nadia did not despair and worked as a newspaper seller and housekeeper, but she complains that even these businesses “do not generate enough income to cover basic expenses.”
Salim Araji, ESCWA Economic Affairs Officer, attributes high rates of unemployment among women to political and war conditions the region has experienced, as well as the Corona pandemic, which is expected to worsen conditions, especially among the women.
Araji says women have had to return home to take care of family and have been fired more than men during the pandemic.
People with disabilities suffer more
According to the ESCWA report, people with disabilities are among the groups who suffer most from high unemployment rates, such as women.
Thousands of kilometers from Cairo, where Nadia lives, Taha Elfendi from the Jordanian governorate of Balqa shares the same dream of finding a job.
Taha graduated in 2012 and graduated in graphic design, but has not found a job since.
Disability rates in the Arab world range from 0.2% in Qatar to 5.1% in Morocco. Employment rates for people with disabilities exceed 14% for women and 34% for men.
Taha says that sometimes the main problem lies in creating an environment for people with disabilities to work. He adds: “I have often been denied a decent job opportunity and deserved it because there were no proper drawers I could deal with in the workplace. , or because there were no tools adapted to my disability to help me accomplish my tasks. ”
Somaya Majzoub, Social Development Officer at ESCWA, asserts that “Arab countries have adhered to legislation that guarantees a quota and a mandatory quota for people with disabilities in the workplace, but employers in most Arab countries do not. know little about these mandatory quotas. ”
Nadia and Taha and on different faces, but they paint a grim picture of the future of work in the Arab region, and according to the International Labor Organization official, Arab countries must take urgent action to reduce unemployment rates, such as exchanging experiences according to market needs, reforming and empowering the private sector to be able to create more employment opportunities.
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