DOHA: Arab uprisings have worsened the unemployment situation in the region, with the rate of joblessness having soared to 17 percent.
Some 20 million people in the Arab world were without jobs in 2013, said a report tabled at an Arab Labour Conference in Cairo yesterday. This was the third day of the forum yesterday with Qatar also taking part, Qatar News Agency (QNA) said.
The report proposes measures to fight the yawning unemployment and among them is to set up an Arab alliance and implement recommendations of Arab Summits. The condition is worse in case of the Arab youth. The rate of unemployment among the educated youth is 27 percent, and 54 percent among the youth in general.
The impact of the joblessness in the Arab world is visible at the social level. It is 41 percent among the women and 23 percent among men.
The report ‘Arab Cooperation and Outlook to Support Job Creation’ was tabled by Ahmed Luqman, Secretary-General, Arab Labor Organisation.
“The situation is explosive. There is a severe job crisis in the Arab world,” said the report. It pointed to some key factors for the plight, among them, rising population, and a lack of education and training opportunities. People don’t have the necessary finance to do business, said the report, stressing that inter-Arab investment and trade be encouraged and integration efforts within the Arab world accelerated. Employ Arabs wherever there are opportunities and scope, the report said.
It said by just increasing one percent of training days in Europe, productivity was raised by three percent. So this shows how important training is.
In the Arab world, only five percent of the overall budget for education and training is spent on technical and vocational training, said the report, citing 11 percent in the developed world.The Peninsula
