Residents of Amman, Irbid and Zarqa snatch three quarters of new job openings

AMMAN — Of around 54,000 net new jobs created by the Jordanian economy in 2013, men snatched nearly 64 per cent of those, an official report said Wednesday. 

In 2012, the number of jobs created in Jordan stood at 50,000. 

A study released by the department of Statistics (DoS) indicated that a total of 82,000 new jobs were created in the Kingdom last year, but 28,000 of them were lost. 

The DoS report, a copy of which was e-mailed to The Jordan Times, showed that 35,000 new jobs were occupied by men, and that majority of the jobs were produced by the private sector. 

Nearly 79 per cent of the net new jobs, or 41,000, were created by the private sector, while the government sector helped create 13,000 new jobs. 

Residents of Amman, Irbid and Zarqa, Jordan’s most populous governorates with more than 70 per cent of the population, took three quarters of the new jobs, while residents of the southern governorate of Maan were the least to benefit from the new employment opportunities, said the report. 

The DoS study pointed out that 77 per cent of the new jobs were occupied by Jordanians and that only 13,000 jobs went to guest workers. 

According to the department, the figures confirm that guest workers are still demanded by employers in the Kingdom despite government efforts to replace them with Jordanians.  

Around 50 per cent of the new jobs were occupied by individuals holding educational qualifications less than the secondary certificate, with bachelors degree holders accounted for 31 per cent of the new employees. 

Social science, commercial business and law graduates who hold a diploma degree or higher constituted 29 per cent of the new employees, with the secondary certificate holders from the literature stream taking the highest ratio to find jobs among secondary certificate holders. 

The same study showed that work environment was the main reason for employees, both males and females, to quit their jobs.

"When comparing 2013 numbers with previous years, it is clear that the private sector secured jobs in 2013 more than it did in each of the years from 2007 through 2012, and the public sector provided less jobs in 2013 compared to the statistics of the same years," the report indicated

The results also showed that the private sector always provided more jobs than the public sector through the past seven years.