By Linda Hindi
AMMAN - Over half the new jobs created annually in Jordan are being filled by foreign workers, a labour market study has revealed.
“Jordan is producing around 55,000 jobs per year and 53 per cent of those jobs are going to non-Jordanians…The majority of whom are Egyptians,” Mamdouh Salamat, human resource researcher for Al Manar project said.
The recently released report, “Labour Market Conditions in Jordan”, scrutinises microdata over the span of 11 years up until 2006.
The data was interpreted to help reform labour market policies, as it gives clear descriptions about supply, demand and wages in the Kingdom, according to the authors.
The main conclusion on the supply of workers is that the largest cohort of young workers Jordan has ever witnessed will enter the market over the next decade, the bulk of which will show in 2011.
Commissioned by Al Manar project under the National Centre for Human Resources Development, the study points out that there is a rapid rise in overall employment opportunities but citizens are hardly reaping the benefits.
Between the periods of 2002-2006, the Kingdom witnessed a 5.1 per cent per annum increase in jobs created, while employed Jordanians increased only 2.7 per cent during the same period.
Notably, employment of non-Jordanians is increasing at about 10 per cent a year.
“There are around 170,000 citizens out of work, most of whom are uneducated. But most of the 300,000 foreign workers in Jordan are also uneducated. There should be much more focus from the Ministry of Labour on projects that will reverse this trend,” Salamat told The Jordan Times.
According to the director of Al Manar project, Nader Mrayyan, the number of foreigners working in Jordan is more than 300,000 in their report since no consideration is given to the Iraqis working in the Kingdom.
The report, which was conducted by international consultants in cooperation with the Department of Statistics and the World Bank, came on the heels of a major World Bank report for 2007 on the Jordanian labour market.
It highlights Jordan’s average 7.2 per cent per annum GDP growth rate and the persistently high unemployment rate at around 15 per cent.
The World Bank report partly attributes this foremost paradox in the Jordanian economy to geography and a fairly open labour market where employers can easily meet their employment needs by hiring foreign workers.
In this context, it marks the low opinion of employers of the employability of Jordanian workers. Citing willingness to work hard, put in long hours, and being flexible opposite to the high expectations of Jordanian youth whose increasing levels of education lead them to expect well-paying desk jobs close to home.
A main consultant to Al Manar study was Ragui Assaad from the Population Council in Egypt. He told The Jordan Times that the “miss-match” was the most surprising element revealed in the study.
“Usually the employers are stuck with what is in the labour force and workers are stuck with what is available… in Jordan this major mechanism to close the unemployment gap is removed,” Assaad said.
Hospitality, real estate top job-creating sector
A large portion of newly created jobs is being generated from the tourism sector, business services, restaurants and real estate.
Manufacturing and trade grew from 1999 to 2002 and then stagnated.
The president of the Association of Restaurant and Sweet Shops Owners, Raed Hamada, told The Jordan Times that his sector needs more workers and would prefer Jordanians but after several trials, it remains clear that citizens do not accept menial jobs.
“Restaurant owners would rather employ Jordanians because if there were more Jordanians with income, they would be taking their families to our restaurants,” Hamada said.
“The Labour Ministry knows that if a law were in place to dispel all non-Jordanian workers, the service industry would collapse and that is why they continue to let around half a million foreigners work,” he added.
Over the last decade, Jordanian agriculture and fishing workers declined by 15.4 per cent while the sector witnessed a 6.8 per cent increase in non-Jordanian workers.
Meanwhile, the private sector growth rate is faster than the public sector but the wage level in the public sector is already higher.
The decline in the share of private sector employment for Jordanians is most pronounced for young women. It points out that women are the least involved in private sector work and the disparity in wages offered to them.
“The latest data reveals that women are being paid almost 29 per cent less than men in the private sector and around five per cent less in the public sector,” Salamat, the human resource researcher, said.
A look at real wages
The study, which was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency, also follows “real wages” and looks into gradual increases in salary while taking into consideration inflation rates.
It found that “real wages” decreased in the public sector and remained stable in the private sector. Public and private disparities decreased since wages in the public sector remain higher than in the private sector.
Also, the real wage index increased in almost all occupations except among legislators which decreased (-13%) and technicians (-3%).
The largest increases were among clerks (+5%), craft and related trade workers (+7%), and elementary occupations (+11%).
Services and sales workers experienced a 17 per cent increase in real wages but the study noted that this result should be treated with caution due to the frequent fluctuations in their wages.
The trend of the wage index by occupation was compiled from data between the years 2000-2003, research officials stressed that this is because of lack of current “reliable” statistics but according to their findings there is minimal difference in figures up until this year.
On wages, increases among elementary occupations reflect the increased demand for unskilled work. However, the increased employment of professionals was not accompanied by significant increases in wages likely because it was accompanied by an increased supply as well.
Overall, the observed wage trends underscore the dynamism of Jordan’s service economy, especially the tourism sector, in recent years.
