Arab states to cut unemployment by 7% by 2020

Arab Unemployment

Ministers of the Arab states have vowed to cut the rate of joblessness in the Middle East region by 7 percent by the year 2020.

Unemployment is seen as one of the main drivers behind extremism, as people are left desperate and vulnerable, so leaders of the Arab Gulf have promised to address this issue by getting more people into work.

At the end of a three-day meeting in Manama organised by the Arab Labour Organisation (ALO), ministers pledged to halve the rate of joblessness, which currently averages 14 percent. Other targets include increasing productivity by one percent each year in the same period and in turn to ease the mobility of the workforce in Arab states.

ALO's chief Ahmed Mohammed Lukman told delegates: "Unemployment threatens all Arab societies without exception," and has reached "its worst levels."

"It threatens social harmony and national security, as it constitutes a source of extremism, of terrorism and of desperation. It undermines trust between governments and the people."

Meeting demands

Unemployment among Arabs stood at 17 million two years ago, when the ALO chief made the announcement that four million jobs would have to be created every year for Arab youths if they were to meet the demands of the region's growing workforce.

At the time the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated unemployment among 15- to 24-year-old Arabs, numbering 66 million, to be as high as 40 percent, and put average unemployment rates at more than 15 percent, as reported by Middle East Online.

Preparing the job market for the Arab youth is critical to avoiding a unemployment crisis in the region considering one third of the entire Arab population of more than 300 million people is under 14.

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Daniel Jones

Daniel is a Politics and Philosophy graduate from Cardiff University where he also worked as a section editor on the award winning student newspaper. After university he joined an IT support company where he was a B2B online writer. He loves anything to do with sport and joined GDS in July 2009.

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