Around 388,000 Civil Service Bureau applicants await postings — JLW

AMMAN — Around 388,000 applicants to the Civil Service Bureau (CSB) are still waiting for an employment opportunity, which signals a crisis at a time when the bureau has just terminated around 15,000 applications as they date back to over 48 years.

In a statement issued on Monday, the Phenix Centre for Economic and Informatics Studies quoted CSB President Sameh Nasser as saying that the 14,700 applicants should turn to the Vocational Training Corporation to receive workshops on technical skills needed in the job market.

Head of the Lower House Labour Committee, MP Hussein Alharasees, told the Jordan Labour Watch (JLW) that the issue regarding applicants to the CSB will be discussed in the next meeting with the concerned authorities.

He noted that they will present their suggestions to the government regarding the entire matter of unemployment, including the fate of the 338,000 applicants.

On the CSB’s official media page, some people who have applied to the CSB in the early 2000s in various fields claim that they have not heard back from the bureau to this day, even worse the queue is getting longer and their chances of getting employed are becoming slimmer, according to the statement.

“The issue lies in the government’s policies, which should be directed towards enhancing the economy and overcoming recession through an investment plan and strategic projects,” economist Sami Shraim told the JLW.

With regard to the issue of large number of CSB applicants in the waiting, Shraim said that “there is nothing impossible in public management, and the country has all the necessary foundations to resolve the issue and ensure the employment and recruitment of the unemployed,” Shraim added, according to the statement.

The JLW said that they attempted to reach officials at the CSB for commentary but received no response.

The annual report of the CSB revealed that there are 70,000 graduates annually, holding diplomas and bachelor’s degrees, whereas the annual governmental capacity for employment amounts to 7,000 vacancies; that is only 10 per cent of the overall number of jobseekers.

The new amendments to the Ministry of Education’s Law allow applications only from those with a bachelor’s degree, thus of the 14,700 terminated applications, 11,300 were cancelled because they don’t have the required degree, while the rest were cancelled as their fields have become saturated in the job market.

 The CSB was established in 1955, and among its tasks is nominating applicants for jobs in the government, participating in the selection process and putting the basis for competitive tests in the application process.