High and increasing unemployment rates in the MENA region are a concern for governments and economy. We have at our hands a peculiar situation where we lack employment opportunities, as well as a lack of qualified candidates who can meet specific job requirements This article deals with the common employment paradoxes faced by employers in the region.

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Unemployment Paradox in the
MENA Region
 High and increasing unemployment rates in the MENA region are a concern
for governments and economy.
 We have at our hands a peculiar situation where we lack employment
opportunities, as well as a lack of qualified candidates who can meet specific
job requirements
 This article deals with the common employment paradoxes faced by
employers in the region.
One of the challenges that face any economy is its unemployment percentage and the MENA
region is not an exception; where these rates are not only high…But unfortunately increasing!
Unlike most people claims; unemployment is not mainly attributed to unavailability of
employment opportunities, but surprisingly enough, employers are also facing the challenge of
scarce caliber resources who can meet minimum requirements of a specific job. Companies

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need workers who can do their jobs perfectly or at least do the minimum requirements needed
for the job to be productive; while employees are mainly focusing on job rewards.
Therefore there is a paradox between the 2 claims, one which states that the market does not
have enough jobs and the other that claims that many jobs can’t find candidates to fill! Well
actually both are true!
While investors are not investing enough (Development and Money), also workers are not
working hard enough!
The following chart shows different unemployment rates across the global regions (2014-Q2):

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Common Unemployment Paradoxes
A) Attitude vs. Skills:
 Most employers are eager to realize positive performance results and therefore seek in
their interviews to hire employees with “technical” experience with low focus on attitude
and behavior; thus leaving a lot of “Inexperienced” or “fresh graduate” candidates
unemployed. The more we have employers like these, the higher will be the salaries of
experienced workers and the lower will be the chance for potential good calibers.
 MNC expansions through the past 2 decades has dramatically influenced the general
market trend for people development in 2 ways:
 Exported good candidates who are seeking better packages (Especially Managers) to local
companies.
 They directly forced their competitors to provide people with better development path
and financial packages to avoid high employee turn-over.
 MNC invasion was not all so good also; some employees would just leave because they are
perceived below expectations at their former companies where the performance bar is
really high, while they know they can get a better salary and job title at another
organization that is not so very much sophisticated! This was one of the reasons for salary
bubbles raising the gap between different company ranks.
B) Able to Work vs. Willing to Work:
 While some people can’t find a job, some others are not willing to work unless in very
specific jobs or even unwilling to work at all!
 Some insist on finding jobs in their specific education field, while others are not willing to
work unless with a specific salary or a specific position.
 The main issue is not the perception itself, but rather their willingness to improve their
knowledge, skills and attitude… Some workers just don’t and won’t upgrade any of those
three, but still are demanding specific jobs that can’t be matched by their current set of
skills and will (Most probably) stay unemployed!

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C) Gap between Education and Actual Required Market Experience
 While employers are still valuing technical and functional skills, millions of fresh graduates
are out in the market getting frustrated from the amount of job applications and
interviews replied to negatively or even none replied to at all! I always face this question
from frustrated young people “How can I have experience if nobody is willing to provide
me with this experience without having prior experience?!”
D) Perceived vs. Actual Skills:
 Another paradox that invaded the job market is how a candidate perceives the skills
required to perform adequately in a given job. If an employee is given a negative feedback
from his / her direct boss, most commonly they will seek another job where they are
perceived as better candidates to fill the required positions
E) Low Caliber
 It is very common that company X is looking for a senior manager and 100 people apply for
the job, then the number reaches 10 candidates after the initial screening and then 2 at
the final interview them 0 accepted, then company X looks for a specific senior manager to
hire later by direct head hunting.
What we are facing currently is a multifaceted “unordinary” issue; therefore the solution also
should be “unordinary”
Real change of: Perception – Attitude – Creative Solutions.
The article is written by Sherif Taha for Arab Business Review
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