Majority of Women Unemployed

Most Syrian women are unemployed, and those who do have jobs tend to be state employees, according to a September 13 report by the pro-government website Syria Tomorrow.



Citing census date from 2006, the website reported that only 630,000 of the five million women in Syria aged 15 and older are employed. Just over half of the women in work are public-sector workers compared with 25 per cent of men. In the private sector, seven out of ten female employees only have a basic school education.



The website argued that because they are concentrated in the state sector, female workers will be hardest hit by the government’s strategy of shifting from decades of socialism to a market economy.



Syria Tomorrow called for a study to be carried out to find out why women do not seek work in the private sector, and what conditions they work under in such jobs.