Administrative, financial jobs most wanted in market — survey

AMMAN — Administrative and financial jobs topped the list of most demanded jobs in Jordan in 2017, with almost one third of the available vacancies being in the two sectors, a study by the Phenix Centre for Economic and Informatics Studies showed.

The study, a copy of which was e-mailed to The Jordan Times, indicated that 34.1 per cent of the vacancies announced in daily newspapers in 2017 were in the financial and administrative sectors.

Vacancies in the field of education came second, with 12.4 per cent of the total advertisements, according to the study conducted in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation under the title "Employment Trends in Jordan in 2017".

The survey was based on the analysis of all job vacancies' ads in daily newspapers that included 6,873 vacancy announcements, director of the centre Ahmad Awad said in the report.

Technical jobs were the third most demanded category, followed by the engineering, medical and hospitality sector.

4.3 per cent of demanded vacancies were in the IT sector, according to the study.

"Such study provides important information for decision makers to help address the gaps between the labour market and the education sector outputs in order to address rising unemployment in Jordan," Awad said.

According to official figures, unemployment in Jordan reached 18.3 per cent by the end of 2017, going up to 40 per cent among the youth.

Awad highlighted the need for more focus on vocational education as there are hundreds of thousands of jobs in several sectors which are currently taken by guest workers due to the lack of Jordanian alternative.

Commenting on the study, economist Wajdi Makhamreh said: "The Jordanian economy is mostly dominated by the service sector and this sector is always growing, thus demanding more jobs every year."

"The banking sector in Jordan is one of the strongest and best performing and there is always a need for more vacancies to meet the demand in the sector," the economist said.

He pointed to the low demand for jobs in the hospitality sector, saying "some tourism facilities even laid off some of their employees last year".

As for the industrial sector, he said it did not witness a healthy growth amidst several local and regional challenges.

"With the closure of the borders with some neighbouring countries and the rise in costs of production, there has not been a large demand for vacancies in the industrial sector," he said, adding that the study provides a guideline for students when choosing their majors.

Although most demanded jobs are in the fields of finance and administration in Jordan, students should also focus on jobs highly demanded abroad, especially in the Gulf, he explained.

Out of the total number of ads for vacancies in 2017, around 8.1 per cent were for vacancies in the Gulf countries, mostly in the medical sector, the IT and the education field respectively.