Jordan’s economy grew by 3.0 percent in the
second quarter of 2026, compared with 2.8 percent in the same period last year.
This improvement is a positive development amid war and regional instability,
which continues to put pressure on trade, investment, tourism, production costs
and market stability.
اضافة اعلان
The task now is to sustain this momentum
and extend its benefits to people’s lives through decent jobs, better incomes
and a greater ability to meet living costs. The sectors driving growth help
identify policy priorities. Manufacturing accounted for more than a third of
the growth recorded, alongside expansion in agriculture and the electricity
sector.
This calls for addressing the barriers that
constrain production, particularly energy, financing and transport costs, while
improving market access and strengthening links between large firms and smaller
businesses. When factories increase their local purchases, the benefits of
their growth can spread to suppliers, transport providers and service
businesses, creating jobs beyond the firms directly expanding production.
Higher production alone, however, does not
guarantee comparable improvements in jobs and wages. Firms may expand by
installing new equipment or bringing idle production capacity back into use.
Assessing growth therefore requires tracking how its gains are distributed. One
important measure is the labour income share of gross domestic products,
alongside employment and real wages. This measure includes employees’ wages and
compensation, as well as estimated labour income earned by the self-employed.
The labour income share helps show how far
the benefits of growth reach people. It covers employees’ earnings and the
estimated labour income of those working for themselves. According to figures
attributed to the International Labour Organization, this share was estimated
at around 46 percent in Jordan in 2024, compared with 52.4 percent globally.
In other words, workers in Jordan receive
roughly 46 JOD out of every 100 JOD generated by the economy, compared with
more than 52 JOD globally. The share is higher in several member countries of
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), reaching
around 62 percent in Germany, 60 percent in France and 59 percent in Canada.
This comparison underlines the importance
of monitoring workers’ share of Jordan’s economic growth. Higher production
should create room for better incomes, alongside investment and improvements in
firms’ productive capacity.
When the economy grows faster than workers’
incomes, their share of its gains declines. What matters, therefore, is how
much they benefit from increased production. This indicator alone cannot
determine whether growth is equitable. We also need to examine whether wages
cover living costs, how earnings are distributed among workers, how secure jobs
are and whether social protection is available.
The practical priority is to link
government incentives for economic sectors to clear outcomes in employment,
wages and local value added, and to publish evaluations showing their costs and
how far they meet their stated objectives. At the same time, wages that better
reflect living costs, together with broader social protection, can support
domestic demand and give the economy further momentum.
Concerns about rising costs for businesses
deserve serious attention. Measures should therefore be introduced gradually,
accompanied by efforts to improve productivity and ease production constraints,
particularly for small businesses.
Economic growth delivers its full value
when people’s incomes improve, and their jobs become more secure. Tracking the
labour income share gives us a tool to assess this progress and guide policies
towards a wider distribution of the gains from growth.
