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Lebanon’s youth emigration caused by frustration, unemployment and low wages
6-4-2017
A study by a private Spanish institution has shown that one fifth of the 10 thousand young respondents from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Lebanon want to emigrate driven by a general sense of frustration. The EU-sponsored survey targeting people aged between 15 and 29 years (including 2000 Lebanese), is part of the ‘awakening’ initiative implemented by 15 institutions from the Arab and foreign countries aimed at understanding the main causes of youth migration. According to the study, nearly 17% of the young Lebanese generation wishes to leave the country as a result of unemployment and poor pay. On this, the assistant professor at the Economy Department, LAU, Ali Fakih, who participated in the study, explained that the stereotype of a young Lebanese yearning to emigrate is a jobless university degree holder whose family cannot assist him/her financially. Fakih outlined a number of factors that contribute to this situation, namely: fleeing family pressures (27% of respondents), low pay as compared to salaries abroad (26%), better living standards and lifestyle (19%). The survey has also indicated that only 36.7% of the Lebanese people are employed, but their conditions are nevertheless not promising, (47.2% of them don’t have a work contract and 54.6% have no access to social security benefits). According to the World Bank Mills report, 2012, the average salary of a fresh university graduate in Lebanon stands at USD 773, noting that Lebanon’s output of graduates each year is close to 23 thousand while it creates only 3400 job opportunities. On the other hand, President Michel Aoun appealed to the Lebanese youth to venture into the public sector institutions, maintaining that the country needs the diverse aptitudes of its youth who have demonstrated outstanding and innovative capacities in all works of life. Such faculties, Aoun said, have qualified them to occupy senior posts in the local universities or in major establishments in Lebanon, the region and globally. Aoun was speaking after he received a delegation of LABORA Christian NGO for employment where he reminded of his presidency speech pledge to fight bribery and favoritism in the recruitment process and rely on a mechanism that is based on the criteria of efficiency and academic as well as ethical accomplishments, pointing that “the future of Lebanon, its institutions and administration will be written by his youth.” (Al Diyar, An Nahar, L’Orient Le Jour, April 6, 2017)
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- العربية
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Collective for Research and Training on Development - Action (CRTD.A)