When we raise the slogan of combating unemployment, we must not lose sight of the fact that the number of unemployed exceeds 400,000 (with an unemployment rate of 23.2%), supporting nearly two million citizens. We need to create 250,000 new job opportunities to bring unemployment down to its 2014 level of 11.5%, the lowest rate in the past twenty years and equivalent to the current Arab unemployment average. To achieve this, there is no alternative but to attract new investments and establish institutions, factories, and projects that provide these numbers of job opportunities.
The number of workers in the public and private sectors is approximately 1.4 million, and the number of new entrants to the labor market annually as job seekers is approximately 110,000 young men and women, of whom the labor market can only absorb approximately 35,000.
If we truly want to reach a relatively acceptable level of unemployment, we must reach a labor market that employs at least 1.65 million citizens. This is something I do not believe is possible to achieve under these circumstances, in light of the investment and economic difficulty, a partnership with the private sector that we only find in statements and speeches, university education policies that are predominantly commercial in nature and completely separate from the requirements of the labor market and its need for competencies, and the weakness of vocational training programs and the lack of decent work conditions in many sectors of work.
Workers' House
