Pulse and Indicators of Unemployment in Palestine

9-10-2018 Part One

- The day before yesterday there were demonstrations in Gaza Strip, protesting rampant unemployment, and the demonstrators chanted. The angry protesters....most of them university graduates. The unemployed.... "Oh Ministry of Labor, we want work"!!!! A plague long present...in Palestine..in all its areas.. like a dormant volcano, from which what resembles smoke has begun to emanate..an indicator of its imminent eruption..!!.. The causes of this emitted smoke indicator are revealed by publications of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) — in its report "The General Census of Population, Housing and Establishments" for 2017...whose results were announced in the first quarter of this year...numbers and indicators that indicate that the unemployment rate in Palestine reached a rate that is one of the highest rates in the world..about 30% annually..

- Unemployment in its common municipal sense means that anyone who does not have a source of livelihood is considered unemployed... As the International Labour Organization's definition of the unemployed: it is the individual who has reached a certain age (usually 16 years), is able to work and willing to do so, searches for work..and would accept it at the prevailing wage level, but does not find opportunities for work.

- Unemployment in Palestine......as indicated by the figures of the latest statistical survey in Palestine for 2017..whose results appeared...in the first quarter of this year, report that the population of Palestine of 1967 (the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Jerusalem) reached 4,780,978 persons, of whom in the West Bank 2,881,687 persons including the population of Jerusalem.., while the population in the Gaza Strip reached 1,899,291 persons..this is in 2017, whereas in 2007, the population of Palestine according to the aforementioned definition was 3,767,549 persons according to the statistical survey of that year, and the population in the 1997 census reached 2,895,683 persons...these figures indicate the high population growth in Palestine, which is considered one of the factors causing the high unemployment rate in Palestine. The increase in the population is not matched by an increase and creation of sufficient jobs for these population numbers annually..and the population growth rate in 2017 was 2.7%...which is close to the economic growth rate of 3.1% in the same year.. The per capita income in Palestine in 2017 was $2,923, where it was about $1,741 in the Gaza Strip, while it was $3,762 in the West Bank.. Meanwhile inflation in the same year -2017- was about zero.. However, the achieved growth rates do not suffice to absorb new job seekers, and the Palestinian economy in 2017 was not able to reduce high unemployment levels..

- The unemployment rate in Palestine, as stated in the latest statistical survey in 2017, reached about 30%, where it reached about 47% in the Gaza Strip and about 19% in the West Bank.. It was mentioned that the unemployment rate..in Palestine is among the highest rates in the world relative to population.. I reviewed a list of unemployment rates in the world according to statistics for 2017 up to mid this year, showing that Palestine sits atop the list of the most unemployed countries annually in the world... A few other countries shared in the high rate with us, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina 35%, Congo 47%, Namibia..34%, while among Arab countries Jordan was the highest after Palestine with about 18.7%, followed by Tunisia..15.4%, then Iraq 14.8%, then Sudan 12.7%, Mauritania 11.8%, Egypt 9.9%!!, Iran 12%, Morocco 9.1%, Afghanistan 8.8%, while the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had a rate of 6%, Israel had a rate of 4%, Bahrain 4%, the United States 3.9%, Kuwait 2,08%, the United Arab Emirates 1.7%, while Qatar appeared to have no unemployment with a rate of 0.10%.....!!!!

- There are many reasons for the emergence of unemployment in Palestine, including external reasons, internal ones..and other suffocating additional factors whose developments occurred after the latest population census 2017.. Together they impede economic activity, and prevent it from creating an investment climate and the necessary infrastructure to expand local production, create jobs, and expose Palestinian society to significant economic, social, security and political shocks and repercussions!! One of the foundations for creating new jobs is government spending, which witnessed a decline in the level of public spending by 1.1%..in addition to private spending..in 2017.. There was also a decline in non-tax revenues and grants and external assistance... As for public government public debt, it rose by 2.4% compared to its level in 2016, as this public government debt amounted to $2,543 million...that is 17.5% of GDP..in 2017.. The current account in the balance of payments for 2017 recorded a deficit of $1,563 million..despite its improvement from 2016 due to the rise in current transfers.., yet this deficit constituted 10.8% of GDP.. The trade balance deficit increased by about 2.6% compared to 2016.. As for the banking sector, banks' loan portfolio rose by 16.8% to reach $8,026 million..however, bank lending was directed to the household loans and services sector..to a greater extent than to the industry, agriculture and tourism sectors.