AMMAN — Due to the efforts of the
Ministry of Labor until the beginning of November this year, 6,635 workers, out of 10,192 who
were dismissed from their jobs during the pandemic in violation of the Labor Law
or of the defense order, could return to their jobs, the ministry spokesman Mohammad
Zyoud, told
Jordan News.
اضافة اعلان
Zyoud said that Defense Order No. 6 contributed to the
sustaining of job opportunities in the private sector because it curtailed worker
layoffs; moreover, due to it, work contracts were renewed more than three
times, regardless of the duration of their contract.
The government and the
Social Security Corporation have also launched several programs that contributed to supporting the private
sector, including the “Estidama” program, “which has contributed to preserving
the jobs of about 111,000 workers” of both genders, said Zyoud.
The Ministry of Labor is working to improve vocational
and technical skills, and offering training programs through the Vocational
Training Corporation, according to Zyoud, who said that the ministry aims to
provide skilled and trained labor that is adequate to the market demand.
Not everybody agrees with the ministry’s position.
Hamada Abu Nijmeh, head of the Workers’ Center
Association, told Jordan News that “it is better to lift all the defense
orders related to the labor market, especially when they have loopholes that
led to compromising workers’ rights, through wage cuts and loss of jobs, which
also contributed to an increase in unemployment rates.”
Abu Nijmeh said that in the light of the
pandemic and
its repercussions, the government needs to take measures to protect the economy
and the rights of the citizens, and in particular, support weak institutions
and workers by protecting their jobs, providing social protection to vulnerable
citizens, mostly day laborers, and reviving the national economy by enhancing
the purchasing power of the citizens.
“However, what the government did during the pandemic
was to resort to reducing workers’ wages in order to support the affected
institutions, which harmed the incomes of nearly 500,000 workers and decreased
their purchasing power. This led to harming the private sector, and even state
revenues, and contributed to the economy finding itself in a state of
stagnation,” said Abu Nijmeh.
It is a mistake to think that the difficulties private
sector institutions face can be addressed by reducing workers’ wages, he said,
adding that “solutions” adopted by the government, such as lowering workers’
wages, deepened the economic and social problems, and “caused an unprecedented
increase in poverty rates as a result of job losses, lack of income and
significantly weakened citizen purchasing power.”
Maen Qatamin, former minister of labor, told Jordan
News that the Defense Order No. 6 contributed to maintaining the unemployment
rate relatively unchanged and that “without the defense orders, the percentage
of unemployed would have been much higher.”
Employers complain that the order prevents them from
hiring new employees with much-needed skills.
Defense Order No. 6 of 2020 was issued in April last
year under Defense Law No. 13 of 1992, by the government of then prime minister
and minister of defense Omar Razzaz.
It aimed to protect workers' rights in various
economic sectors in light of some sectors gradually returning to work while the
curfew continued, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.
It outlined procedures for certain employers whose operations
had been suspended under the curfew for submitting requests to the government
to pay their employees at least 50 percent of their usual wages, and procedures
for employers who were unable to pay their employees.
It also included the conditions for institutions and
individuals to benefit from support programs in light of the economic
challenges caused by the pandemic.
In a related development,
Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nasser Shraideh said on Tuesday that the unemployment
rate in Jordan fell to 23.2 percent in the third quarter of this year, and by
1.6 percent compared to the second quarter of 2021.
During his meeting with the Economy and Investment
Committee of the
House of Representatives, Shraideh said that the unemployment
rate among young people decreased to 44.9 percent in the third quarter of this
year, while it had decreased to 48.5 percent in the second quarter of the year.
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