Unemployment In The Arab Region To Increase

04 January 2021 Information

Unemployment rate in the Arab region is expected to rise to 12.5 percent in 2021, says a new report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA).

“Unemployment in the region will be highest in Palestine (31%) followed by Libya (22%) and exceed 21 percent in Jordan and Tunisia, while hovering around 5.8 percent in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries,” said ESCWA in its annual report on the economic and social developments in the Arab region.

The report warned that, although growth is expected to be positive in the region, and exports, which fell by over 50 percent in 2020 will rise to 10.4 percent in 2021, both of these factors were not sufficient to provide enough decent job opportunities for people in the Arab world, said the report. 

The ESCWA report highlighted the fact that the crisis faced by the region goes beyond the economic realm and encompasses several major social challenges. “The region is also suffering from rising poverty, with an average rate that might reach 32 percent in 2021, affecting 116 million people. It is grappling with rising youth unemployment, with an average rate that might reach 27 percent; and with persisting gender inequality as it registers the world’s highest gender gap of 40 percent,” explained Mohamed Hedi Bchir, the lead author of the report

The report noted that the Arab region could face two economic scenarios for 2021: an optimistic one projecting a growth rate of 3.5 percent and one that is less optimistic, limiting growth prospects to 2.8 percent. The actual path will hinge on the ability of Arab countries to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused losses of about US$140 billion for the region, resulting in an estimated  minus 3 percent growth contraction in 2020.

Middle-income Arab countries are the ones expected to achieve the region’s highest growth rates, reaching 5 percent in the optimistic scenario and 4.1 percent in the less optimistic one. Meanwhile, GCC countries will achieve growth rates ranging between 2.3 percent and 2.1 percent, and least developed ones will not record more than 0.5 percent or 0.4 percent of growth, according to the report.

This year’s report of the Survey focuses on debt in the Arab region, which has doubled in the past decade to reach about $1.2 trillion in Arab countries not affected by conflict, and about 80 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Arab middle-income countries. 

 

SOURCE : TIMES KUWAIT

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