Bleak Jobs Picture in the Middle East

A little more than two years after the financial crisis, the employment picture in the oil-rich Middle East is still bleak.

Since the crisis, real estate markets have fallen and the debt crisis in Dubai continues to worry investors that the region will not be able to support the rapid growth it has experienced in the last decade.

The region’s youth have been the hardest hit by unemployment. The jobless rate among 15 to 24 year olds in the Middle East is up to a stunning 23 percent, the second highest in the world, according to a recent study by Deloitte & Touche.

In a recent lecture at Qatar University, James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank, said that rising unemployment poses a serious threat to the Middle East where at least 60 percent of the population is young.

Wolfensohn said that the average graduate from a Middle Eastern university remains unemployed for three years after obtaining a degree and warned that if more local graduates cannot find work, the unemployment problem will severely worsen by 2020.

However, not all the data points coming out are negative.

The IMF has forecast that real gross domestic product (GDP) of the Gulf States should have grown 4.5 percent in 2010 compared to 0.4 percent in 2009.

It’s not just about growth either, also critical is that the youth in the Middle East are properly trained to enter the workforce and possess marketable and functional skill sets.

"Delivering a skilled national workforce is one of the most critical challenges from an economic security and social inclusion perspective.

By coordinating a positive and dynamic relationship between regional labor policies and economic policies, long-term economic stability and growth will build a strong and reliable foundation," Rachid Bachir, Director of Public Policy and Consulting at Deloitte Middle East, wrote in his article ‘Wanted: a National Labor Force.’