Chaos in the labor market in the absence of planning, and career orientation

In its edition of August 27, Al Akhbar daily published an article on difficulties facing fresh graduates and the labor market that has repeatedly failed to accommodate their large numbers in the absence of appropriate vocational orientation and the unreasonably high expectations of students in terms of salary and jobs. We will address today the first subject featured by the newspaper under the title ‘unemployment in disguise’, leaving for tomorrow the results of a survey by Universum Global on the expectations of graduate students. In its definition of disguised unemployment, Al Akhbar said it represents the professions which number of contractors or owners offset the market’s needs. Or for example, the marginal and temporary jobs that have no promotion or stability incentives (like the delivery persons, hookah, stamps sellers, etc). In its analysis, the newspaper maintained that some professions in Lebanon, like medicine, engineering, law and banking, have proliferated because of many contributing factors. First, comes the role of the state, and gave an example the post of planning which normally is the function of a public department or ministry but which has been completely replaced by the Council of Development and Construction which nevertheless does not carry out that function. Secondly, universities which graduate high numbers of potential jobless youth, and thirdly, the citizen him/herself. In the case of the latter, the parents and the student team up to look for a specialty that guarantees a secure livelihood but, who end up choosing one of the four professions mentioned earlier. Al Akhbar went on to say that in case of failure of all the above, there remains the army, the security forces and gendarmerie which yet suffer of masked unemployment, in addition to the transportation sector. In this context, the newspaper highlighted some internationally flourishing fields of education, like the osteopaths, but which Lebanon’s youth don’t give preference to. Other professions on the rise globally, include architectural repair related to the study of theoretical and applied principles in restoring heritage buildings. (Al Akhbar, August 27, 2016)