AMMAN — According to a
Department of Statistics report, Jordan’s unemployment rate in the first quarter of this year was 2.2
percent lower than that in the first quarter of last year, reaching 22.8
percent, 0.5 percent lower than the figure for the entire last year.
اضافة اعلان
The unemployment
rate among men in the first quarter of 2022 stood at 20.5 percent, 3.7
percentage points less than the comparison period last year, while among women,
unemployment stood at 31.5 percent in the same period, a 3 percentage point
increase over the first quarter of last year.
Economic expert
Jawad Anani said the unemployment rate decreased because job opportunities were
created as Jordan started to recover from the pandemic, during which strict
measures were taken, affecting the economy and daily livelihoods, “despite the
government providing assistance from Social Security and the Central Bank for
workers and employers”.
Some large and
medium-size industries laid off a large number of workers who were registered
as unemployed; when the process of recovery started, “they got new jobs, which
contributed to the reduction of the unemployment rate”, said Anani.
While 2021 recorded
the highest unemployment rate, this year saw a slight decline due to the
revival of the tourism sector, which helped revitalize economic activity, and
due to the creation of new jobs, especially in the food and agriculture fields,
he added.
“This decline is
good, and we hope that in the second quarter of the year the unemployment rate
will decrease further,” said Anani.
The head of the
Workers’ House,
Hamada Abu Nijmeh, said that the decrease in unemployment so
far this year compared to the last quarter of last year by half a percentage
point “is a good indicator, but it is not sufficient, and needs to decline by
at least 5 percentage points to return to pre-pandemic levels”.
According to Abu
Nijmeh, there is low demand for jobs these days; he attributes this to the fact
that most available jobs are unattractive due to the low wages and absence of
safety, and rarely suit the specializations of job seekers, the majority of
whom hold university degrees.
In
economist Mazen Irsheid’s view, the decrease in unemployment rate is slight,
and “unemployment is still above 20 percent”. He attributed the reason for the
decline to various economic sectors returning to work post COVID, and “not
because new jobs were created”.
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