Gov’t team in Irbid promises private sector jobs, reaffirms pledge to provide 60,000 jobs in 2019-2020

AMMAN — Efforts are underway to create jobs in the public and private sectors, a government team told a group of jobseekers in the Irbid district of Wasatiyeh, on Tuesday.

During a meeting with the unemployed residents of the district, Minister of Public Works and Housing Falah Omoush said that the government is serious about find solutions to unemployment, especially among the youth.

In order to do so, the government is working on building real partnerships with the private sector, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Omoush highlighted that the government’s action plan in the current phase focuses on finding jobs for the youth.

The government is committed to providing 60,000 jobs in cooperation with the private sector in 2019 and 2020, he underlined.

The right to work is guaranteed in the Constitution, yet the economic and financial conditions in the Kingdom strained the labour market, the minister explained.

Hence, the public sector’s ability to create sufficient jobs to meet the needs locally was stifled, he continued, which is why the public and private sectors’ cooperation is critical to addressing unemployment.

He noted that the public sector has become oversaturated and that more than 90 per cent of the government budget is spent on salaries.

This, he said, restrained the government’s ability to invest in capital and developmental projects to create jobs.

Omoush underlined that the private sector is still the biggest job supplier in Jordan, due to the public sector’s limited vacancies.

Civil Service Bureau (CSB) President Nidal Batayneh explained that there is a big gap between the bureau’s database of job applications and available jobs in the public sector.

This fact, according to Batayneh, requires updating the conventional employment methods.

One way is to market Jordanian capabilities and talents abroad, he stated, adding that there are plans underway to launch by the end of March.

Batayneh noted that these plans target primarily Gulf and Arab labour markets.

So far, the bureau has a database of 388,800 applications that meet the requirements of foreign labour markets. 

Furthermore, Labour Ministry Secretary General Ziad Obeidat said that the National Service programme aims to provide vocational and technical training to around 20,000 young men and women by 2020.

This would make them eligible to enter the labour market in the industrial, tourist, agricultural and construction sectors, he added. 

Jobseekers demanded fair and transparent procedures for employment, and factoring the date and year of graduation into the bureau’s exams.