Unemployment (I) [Archives:2005/881/Business & Economy]
BY DR. AHMAD I. M. AL-HASHEDY AL-BAWAB
EMAIL:[email protected]
FOR THE YEMEN TIMES
Population increase is the greatest challenge that faces Arab regimes at the moment. The weak abilities of these regimes taken in consideration, this issue will have its negative effects on development, while a comprehensive development in these countries could have turned it into a prompting force.
The regimes should have parallel increase in funds allocated for basic services such as education, health training and other services to cope with this population burst. The Arab regimes are falling back in this respect, due to the absence of economic growth that enhances labor markets to absorb this growing increase.
In spite of the high economic potentials that were available for the Arab world, their establishments completely failed to exploit these opportunities to create a new labor market that could have changed their unskilled unemployed force into a productive force. This incapability made a national and regional time bomb out of this problem.
There is now a growing need for a national strategy that strikes a clear mechanism to qualify and prepare the human force in a modern manner to actively participate in national development. The present Arabic increase in population is an extra outlet that to the miseries by spawning unemployment, illiteracy, poverty and undermines all growth perspectives.
Unemployment is an increasing threat to stability in the Arab world as a whole, and in Yemen in particular.
Arabian unemployment costs the budgets annual loses of about $115 milliards. This is enough to create 6 million jobs each year.
The annual Arab Work Organization confirmed that rate of unemployment in the Arab world in 2002, was 2%.This rate is between 6-17 % in the Gulf countries which are considered to be the most developed in the Arab world, this rate reaches 70% in other countries like Iraq and Palestine. The annual increase in labor force in the Arab labor market is 2.5 millions and it has a prospect of reaching 3 millions. This necessitates the providing of three million jobs each year to keep the unemployment rate at its present standard. This needs $70 milliards to be invested annually for this purpose.
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