Employees complain of Employment Office uselessness in Syria’s Suwayda
SUWAYDA, Syria (North Press) – 47-year-old Hassan al-Rayyan (a pseudonym), a day laborer in the city of Suwayda, south Syria, spends all day, every day waiting in al-Saiyr Square waiting for work.
Al-Saiyr Square, in the city center of Suwayda, is a square where job seekers gather to meet with those in need of workers.
Nine years ago, al-Rayyan applied for a government job at the Employment Office in Suwayda, but so far he has received no reply.
Three months ago, al-Rayyan and a group of unemployed people headed to the office of the Suwayda governor and asked him to hire them. The governor promised to take their issue into consideration, but so far they have gotten no reply.
The Employment Office was founded in 2001 in Suwayda in order to secure job opportunities and hire people according to their qualifications in vacancies within government departments.
However, people are complaining and questioning the usefulness of this office in light of the high rate of unemployment and lack of job opportunities, in addition to the favoritism which plays a great role in hiring people.
Al-Rayyan says that the Employment Office hires people depending on favoritism.
Despite being hired as a night watchman in a hospital, he was soon let go after the expiry of his three-month contract, to be replaced with a relative of a government official, according to al-Rayyan.
Currently, the unemployment rate in Suwayda exceeds 42%, according to statistics by the government Office for Planning and Population Development.
Meanwhile, social and economic researchers say that the unemployment indicators are much higher.
45-year-old Suwayda resident Salem Mot’ab (a pseudonym) waits patiently for long hours in order to obtain daily work to secure his family’s basics.
The man often spends his entire day in waiting in the scorching sun, only to have to return home without any work at the end of the day.
As a result of the urgent need for money, workers never compromise over their wages and are satisfied with the employer’s conditions, Mot’ab pointed out.
The daily wage for working in fields, unloading and loading trucks, or loading concrete in construction projects does not exceed 1,000 Syrian pounds (SYP, about 3.17 US dollars) per day.
This amount can hardly secure bread and some vegetables for his family of six, according to the man.
The number of the employment applications over the past ten years has reached 5,500, a government official in the Directorate of Social Affairs and Labor, who asked to be unnamed, told North Press.
Only 5% of the applicants were hired as guards and employees in government facilities, the official pointed out.
The number of the applicants, including university and institute graduates and high school certificate bearers, reached more than 40,000, 60% of which are female.
The government official believes that the government has failed to embrace the problem of unemployment in the city and the Employment Office also has not managed to solve the dilemma after 20 years.
The official attributes this to the lack of vacancies and job opportunities by the government, “which exacerbated the unemployment problem in Suwayda.”