Unemployment amongst the youth pushes them towards higher education whilst awaiting employment opportunities || Newspapers (Arabic)

Al-Mustaqbal newspaper published a report on unemployment rates amongst the youth in Lebanon and on the ways in which young people cope with this problem.  As-Safir noted that university graduates tend to be overqualified but without any professional experience that will allow them to overcome unemployment which was estimated to run high at around 53% of youth of over 15 years of age and according to  2009 figures released by the Central Statistics Administration.  The newspaper report added that there are around 11500 women and men pursuing higher degrees at the Lebanese University during the 2011 academic year according to a study published by Beyt.com entitled “Middle East and North Africa Graduates”.  The same source indicates that 74% of graduates did not receive any support from their universities to seek employment and most had to use online information.  In the absence of any real employment opportunity, many opted to continue their higher education despite the costs incurred.

The report goes on to quote human resources expert, Ramez Tambour, who noted that aside from the public sector, there are no local employment opportunities for Lebanese graduates especially since there is no matching between market demands and supply by the education and training systems.  In fact, the local employment market is clearly unable to absorb all the fresh graduates every year.  Tambour warned that pursing degrees in Masters had devastating economic and social impacts especially since it actually results in freezing all return on investment made in young people and also fuels , according to the same person, corruption and various social ills among young people because of idle time availability.

Source: Al-Mustaqbal 4 December 2012