AMMAN —
Engineering is a popular choice of study and profession for many Jordanian
students, who hope that the field would provide stable employment, however, in
reality, many young engineers remain unemployed, a problem that has only grown
since the
pandemic began.
اضافة اعلان
According to
the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an
estimated 27.2 percent of young engineers in Jordan are unemployed.
In an
interview with
Jordan News, autotronics engineer and 2020 graduate from the
Faculty of Engineering Technology (FET) Zaid Awni said that “engineering is
considered a very precise major that requires internships and much skill for it
to be executed in the work field. Companies, however, no longer provide this
opportunity to fresh graduates and if they do so, it is not paid.”
The lack of
support and incentive from such companies discourages engineers aiming to
pursue a career in this field, according to Awni.
“As an
unemployed mechanical engineer in the autotronics sector, I trained in
maintenance centers for cars for a span of six months,” Awni added. “However, I
was denied a job at any company due to the three to four required years of
experience, which I haven’t acquired.”
“I sent my curriculum
vitae (CV) to many companies with no outcome, so I took a route out of my field
and worked a side job,” said Awni.
“Many
engineering students are majoring in this field simply due to their GPA in the
last year of high school, and not because they are qualified to pursue a
bachelor’s degree in engineering,” said ُelectrical power
engineer and FET graduate Zaid Tawalbeh, yet to be employed, in remarks to
Jordan
News.
“I applied
for the Jordanian Engineers Association (JEA) after graduating in 2020, and was
not accepted. The COVID-19 pandemic also came along with my graduation, and it
reduced any chances of me earning a job,” added Tawalbeh.
One engineer attributed
the high rates of unemployment to a gap in demand. “Information Technology (IT)
Engineers were in high demand during COVID-19, in contrast with other
engineering majors,” said network engineer Abdullah Al Abassi, another graduate
of FET, who is currently unemployed, in an interview with
Jordan News.
“Many of my
peers entered the network engineering major with no background in it, and
graduated with very low GPAs and very slim knowledge, leading to higher rates
of unemployment,” he said.
‘Poor
educational output’
The factors
contributing to unemployment in Jordan, for engineers and those in other
professions, run deep.
“Reducing
unemployment rates requires a joint national effort among all institutions, in
addition to stimulating the investment environment to attract more investments
that generate job opportunities,” said media spokesperson Mohammad Zyoud from
the Ministry of Labor in an interview with
Jordan News.
The Ministry
of Labor, through its role in regulating the market, restricts many professions
only to Jordanians, and signs employment agreements for networking between jobseekers
and employers in the private sector, according to Zyoud.
“We are
responsible for the existing unemployment. The labor-intensive productive
sectors were weakened and moved towards expanding the unfair ‘free trade’ and
‘partnership’ agreements, which led to the expansion of the weak operation of
commercial sectors,” stated Ahmad Awad from the Jordan Labor Watch in an
interview with
Jordan News.
“This
contributed to weakening the capabilities of the national economy to generate
new job opportunities,” he added.
According to
Awad, unemployment rose when university education was expanded, while the needs
of the labor market were moving towards technical, professional and
intermediate jobs, and stagnant majors remained to be taught in
universities.
“Unemployment
occurred when we accepted that the outputs of our educational system — at all
levels — are poor, and its graduates are not qualified to enter the labor
market, due to the lack of knowledge and skills to be acquired,” according to
Awad.
Awad also
added that unemployment grew due to decades of policies that deteriorated
working conditions, in particular wage levels, through the application of so-called
“flexible” labor policies. These policies were based off of the assumption that
weak working conditions contribute to encouraging domestic investment to expand
and attract foreign investment, and that this investment will lead to more job
opportunities, according to Awad.
Additionally,
young men and women were pushed to run after various government jobs, under the
belief that working conditions in the public sector were better than those in
the private sector, and more protected and stable.
“We created
unemployment when the Ministry of Labor began performing the tasks of human
resources departments in business institutions and playing the role of mediator
between the unemployed and business establishments that have vacancies, through
the so-called exhibitions and employment campaigns, while time have proven that
they neither advance nor delay in combating the problem of unemployment,” claimed
Awad.
“It is not
possible to confront the problem of unemployment in Jordan without a serious
review and treatment of the public policies that have exacerbated the problem, which
we have reviewed,” said Awad. “Otherwise we will continue to revolve around
ourselves, and the trends of unemployment indicators will continue to
increase.”
Read more
National
.jpg)
.jpg)
