Non-Jordanians constitute 30.6% of Jordan’s population — HPC

AMMAN — The percentage of non-Jordanians residing in the Kingdom went up from 4.2 per cent of the total population in 1979 to 7.6 per cent in 1994 to 30.6 per cent in 2015, Secretary General of the Higher Population Council (HPC) Abla Amawi said on Saturday.

In an HPC statement on the occasion of International Migrants Day, annually marked on December 18, Amawi said that the 2015 National Population and Housing Census showed that non-Jordanians in the Kingdom totalled some 2.918 million with males accounting for 57.5 per cent.

Syrians, Egyptians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Yemenis and Libyans nationals totalled 2.720 million, constituting 93.2 per cent of non-Jordanians in the country, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported quoting Amawi as saying in the statement.

Syrians made up the biggest percentage of non-Jordanians with 43.4 per cent, followed by Egyptians with 21.8 per cent, and Palestinians with 21.7 per cent, she said.The gender ratio stood at 135.5 males for each 100 females, the secretary general noted.

Citing the 2014 Jordanian international migration survey, Amawi said that 63 per cent of Jordanians migrated for economic reasons and 26 per cent of them migrated to look for better job opportunities. 

On the occasion of International Migrants Day, she said that as part of HPC’s vision considering population a main development aspect, caring for migrants is an indispensable part of the council’s work.

Amawi also said that the HPC seeks to shed light on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) that offers an effective framework for international cooperation on the governance of international migration with all its dimensions, and ensures the protection of all migrants everywhere and they are receiving just treatment.

She also added that the pandemic has affected all forms of human movement, where studies show that the pandemic has lowered the number of international migrants by two million at the global level by mid-2020.