AMMAN — An issue facing a number of businesses in Jordan is
the cost and availability of local labor, according to Shoghul and Challenger
Team Founder Maen Odeh. Yet, unemployment rates in the country continue to
rise.
اضافة اعلان
Jordan’s
Economic and Social Council country status report
shows that official unemployment rates reached 23.9 percent in 2020.
To target this discrepancy, Shoghul, a recruitment and
capacity-building platform, intends to train and connect Jordanian youth to
vacancies in the labor market.
“Today, Jordanian youth, especially those in east Amman and
other governates, don’t have the network or access to vocational jobs,” Odeh
said in an interview with
Jordan News.
The platform allows job seekers to create an account, build
their resume, undergo a variety of simple training courses and learning quizzes
and eventually, find job opportunities. Available for free, the courses include
training on soft skills, business protocols and safety guidelines.
“There are a number of career-building platforms, but what
set us apart is that we specialize in the vocational and labor jobs,” Odeh
said. “We target local youth, women, and Syrian refugees, as well as employers
in that sector.”
Employers in Jordan have been facing the issues of rising
foreign labor costs, in addition to a lack of commitment by local employees,
Odeh explains.
The influx of foreign workers is among the biggest
challenges facing the labor economy, according to the Ministry of Labor’s 2019
annual report. In 2019, registered foreign workers made up almost 20.5 percent
of the Jordanian workforce, the report states.
Among the strategies employed by the government to tackle
this challenge a number of years ago was increasing the costs of work permits
for foreign laborers. “The cost of foreign work permits skyrocketed,” Odeh
explained. “This puts a huge burden on the small businesses, manufacturers and
anyone who requires vocational laborers such as the construction sector.”
Yet, the tools in place to help connect the youth with
employers in these sectors were lacking, Odeh said. This is where Shoghul comes
in to address this gap in the market, serving employers that depend on
vocational workers to maintain business.
WeDeliver, a delivery service for local restaurants and
shops, views their partnership with the career platform to be useful. The
company focuses on hiring young, local employees from east Amman as delivery
drivers, said founder Abdulkareem Nabulsi in an interview with
Jordan News.
“When I hire new employees, it sometimes turns out to be a
waste of time and effort as after a month or so, it might not work out,”
Nabulsi said. “This makes employment easier as I give them specific criteria
and they help filter the employees to find a match.”
Additionally, according to market research conducted by
Shoghul, employers complain about the lack of commitment by local employees who
do not want to occupy labor roles. The founders believe that the platform’s
training courses address this.
“It is very important to manage the expectations of job
seekers to ensure long-term commitment,” Odeh said. “Through the courses that
we are offering we tell them that work is not shameful; it’s a job that can
help you get by and could open other doors for you.”
Another cultural stigma Shoghul is working to tackle is the
employment of local women in labor roles that tend to be male dominated. “By
collaborating with employers, we want to see how to create positions for
women,” Odeh said. “There is a large population of women looking for jobs; they
are not opposed to vocational work.”
Currently, the Shoghul team is working on finalizing the
portal, securing funds, partnering with employers, and collaborating with
community-based organizations to organize recruitment events. They aim to
launch the updated portal mid-May.
Being an extension of the Challenger Team company, the
Shoghul platform is one of several digitally based initiatives that arose in
response to the coronavirus. “This platform is a part of our digital
transformation adaptation approach to prepare youth to continue building their
capacities and help them secure a better future,” Odeh said.
Read more
business
.jpg)
.jpg)
