Jordan Joblessness Rising

Jordan’s unemployment rate during the second quarter of 2018 was 18.7%, according to the department of statistics quarterly report on the unemployment rate in the kingdom, Albawaba reported. The figure entails a slight rise from the same period last year. The report pointed out that the unemployment rate for females during the second quarter of 2018 was 26.8%, constituting a decline by 7.1 percentage points, compared with the second quarter of 2017, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. The progress was attributed to the programs implemented by the ministry of labor in cooperation with partners through intensive employment projects, especially in the productive sectors, in addition to increasing the integration of women in the local labor market, improving the work environment and increasing the number of nurseries in public and private sector institutions, the report added. Commenting on the finding of the DoS report, Labor Minister Samir Murad said on Monday that the labor force survey, in its new approach, included a sample of about 16,000 households spread across all the governorates of the kingdom, representing urban and rural segments.