AMMAN — Claims that travel agencies
seized the opportunity to get rid of their employees when tourism stopped due
to the COVID-19 pandemic, by a report prepared by a local investigative media
center, were denied by travel agents and the
Jordan Society for Travel Agents(JSTA).
اضافة اعلان
Mahmoud Khasawneh, member of the JSTA
board of directors, said that the report covered individual cases and was not
holistic as it did not talk about the situation in general.
According to Khasawneh, only 280 out
of 6,295 employees at travel agencies lost their jobs during the pandemic,
including those who decided to quit for reasons that are not related to the
pandemic, such as looking for better options in other fields.
The report said that some travel
agencies fired their employees under the pretext that they were going to close
their offices. It also says that some travel agencies excluded senior employees
and accountants but fired others, which is illegal.
Labor Ministry Spokesperson Mohammad
Zyoud said that the ministry is responsible for all matters involving workers
and for taking action in case of complaints filed by employees.
Zyoud said that the ministry has
created an online platform, “Hemayah.jo”, to which workers may resort if they
feel their rights were violated, adding that employees have the option to file
cases secretly.
Once a case is filed, the ministry
follows up and takes the appropriate action, Zyoud said.
Sulaiman Abu Dalu, who has been
working at a travel agency for 20 years, said that he did not quit his job and continued
to receive his salary as determined by the related defense order.
In other agencies, employees took
unpaid vacations upon promises and they will be taken back.
According to Khasawneh, the
Social Security Corporation lent support to the sector through it program “Istidamah”
which covered 85 per cent of the workers’ salaries for 13 months and extended
the coverage until the end June this year.
Between March 2020 and July 2021,
136 tourist facilities submitted requests to stop operating; 89 of them resumed
their activities when the sector was granted partial relief, according to the
report.
During the pandemic, 307 tourist
offices out of 800 had failed to renew their licenses by April 2021. Nearly 10,000
employees used to work in these offices spread across the 12 governorates of
Jordan.
Noor [no full name], an employee at
a travel agency, said that some employees agreed to take unpaid vacations out
of loyalty to their agencies and because they felt they should also bear some
of the burdens inflicted by the pandemic.
After six months of no income, she
returned to her job and started working again.
The tourism sector contributes 13
percent of the GDP, with an income of JD4.1 billion ($5.78 billion) for the
year 2019, and directly employs more than 53,000 workers, according to official
figures.
Tourism revenues declined from JD4.1
billion ($5.7 billion) in 2019 to JD1 billion ($1.4 billion) the following
year.
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