JORDAN

Data suggests universities contribute to unemployment
Unemployment rates among university graduates hit 23% last year in Jordan, according to the latest official statistics. The unemployment is uneven across gender: nearly 27% of unemployed university graduates are male, while almost 68% are female. Why can Jordan graduates not get jobs? asks Ammar Faris for Al-Fanar Media.Jordan is not alone among Arab countries in trying to find out why so many university and even vocational institute graduates can’t find jobs. And the kingdom is similar to many other Arab countries in that young people desire government jobs, because of their short working hours and stability, even though many Arab governments are losing the financial ability to support inefficient bureaucracies.
But Jordan is unusual in that it has a Civil Service Bureau that tracks the supply and demand of government jobs and issues reports, which apparently are not read by Jordanian youth. Moreover, the majority of universities do not abide by the recommendations that call for decreasing the number of students admitted in stagnant and saturated disciplines.
Full report on the Al-Fanar Media site