Hasnaa Al Rantisy – Palestine Economy Portal

Translated by Tamara Barakat

The President of the Palestine Engineers Association, Majdi Al-Saleh, blamed the universities’ teaching system and the government for the increase in the number of unemployed engineers to 20,400 because they froze and did not apply many legislations.

Causes of Unemployment

Al-Saleh explained that the admission policy at universities and the distribution of specialties do not match the market’s needs.

As for the legislations, he said that many of them are frozen. For example, the Industrial law was frozen in 2000, and it stipulates that a competent engineer should be hired in order for any industrial facility to operate, as one of the conditions for obtaining a license by this facility.  The legislation was frozen as the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Commerce were merged into the Ministry of National Economy.

He also said that a problem lies in the governmental institutions’ ability to hire engineers. “A private study revealed that ministries and institutions require 1300 engineers, but none of these vacancies was filled, even though the number of engineering graduates in the past three years reached 4500 engineers. And this also aggravates the problem.”

The Role of the Palestine Engineers Association

Regarding the role of the Association in alleviating unemployment among engineers, Al-Saleh said that the Association has a program for training and qualifying engineers, onto which more than 255 thousand JDs are spent in order to create job opportunities for engineers in the local market though establishing networks between them and engineering companies and offices.

He added that the Association provides 500 JDs for fresh engineering graduates, while employers provide them with 250 JDs, in order to improve their work experience.

He stressed the importance of solving the problem of the increase in unemployment rates, especially since engineers pay thousands of dollars during their university studies, only to find themselves unemployed after graduating.

He explained that the education expenses for engineering students in Palestine reach 15 thousand JDs if the students are classified as “regular students” and not enrolled through the parallel education system.

Meanwhile, the education expenses of an engineering student in Egyptian and other Arab universities are around 50 thousand dollars. The percentage of Palestinian engineering graduates from universities outside of Palestine reaches 15% out of the overall engineering graduates. Al-Saleh mentioned that this percentage includes a large number of unemployed engineers.

Gap between Males and Females

The unemployment rates reveal that there is a gap among males and females. 52% of the unemployed engineers are females and 30% are males. Al-Saleh commented on these percentages, saying, “Employment rates are higher among males because of their ability to travel and work abroad, while females are forced to stay in Palestine until they find a job opportunity because of the Palestinian society's conservative nature.”

He explained that 7.5% of engineers registered at the Palestine Engineers Association work abroad and the majority of them work in the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait. The average salary of newly employed engineer in Saudi Arabia, for example, is 4 thousand SR, and in the UAE it reaches around 6500 AED.