Lack of job opportunities for young people in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has created an unemployment crisis that could further destabilise the Arab region, warn experts. “The largest generation, which was born in the 1980s, has reached working age... young adults are now perceived as the most problematic age group,” notes sociologist and demographer Philippe Fargues, director of the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute, Florence. “Their growth has outpaced the resources available to them, from employment that provides income and status, to freedom, participation, and agency,” adds Fargues, who in a recent paper suggested that the “youth bulge” will reshape the Arab world.
The latest figures from the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics indicate that 21.7 percent of the population is out of work. This translates into 30.8 percent of the population of Gaza and 17.4 percent in the West Bank. According to the UN, 43.4 percent of the Palestinian population is under 15, and in the Gaza Strip 63.4 percent of 15-24 year-olds are unemployed. This figure rises to 75.8 percent among women.
And yet, since the Israeli blockade was imposed in 2007, migration has not been an option for the vast majority of Gazans. As a result, there are few options left for young people looking for work. “This generation faces many more difficulties than we did,” says Mahmoud Abu Libda, a supervisor in an engineering workshop supported by the ACT Alliance in Khan Younis, south Gaza. Libda trains young men to be motor mechanics — perhaps the only trade still flourishing in Gaza. Continual electricity cuts and reliance on generators mean that mechanics are rarely in want of work. Every year there is a huge demand for admission into the workshop, with at least 150 applicants for 22 places.
“The most important thing for them is to find jobs. We could work in Israel, the Gulf states, but with the blockade we are living in a prison here. Being part of a political faction (Fatah or Hamas) or joining the extremists (Al-Qaeda) are the easiest ways to be supported and earn money in Gaza,” says Libda.
According to Chris Gunness, spokesperson for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), young people in Gaza face a double whammy — high educational achievement and no work. “Having a highly educated, unemployed population is a recipe for discontent, frustration and worse. This is in no one’s interests, least of all Israel,” says Gunness.
In the West Bank, the economic situation is different but still bleak. There is no blockade but the Israeli occupation means the job market cannot support this generation of job seekers. “In the West Bank we have heard much about economic success, but years of occupation have set the base line very low. Nor is this economic success spread evenly across the population,” says Gunness.
According to the bureau of statistics, the number of Palestinians employed in Israel and Israeli settlements had risen from 75,000 to 78,000 in the third and fourth quarters of 2010, of whom 17,000 have no work permit and 50 percent work in the construction industry.
(Excerpted and adapted from www.irinnews.org)