Syrian labour market in turmoil

“Syria is fine” and “it’s over” are two oft-repeated assertions among Syrian officials, collaborators and supporters of the regime, referring to the supposed end of the Syrian crisis. Facts on the ground, however, indicate that Syrians have many more difficult days ahead of them, whether the crisis ends now or continues until the regime is toppled.

The billboards erected all over Damascus announcing Syria’s well being certainly do not reflect the truth; many recent and crucial developments are seriously affecting the lives of Syrians, especially average citizens who either have limited income or are not Alawis, and do not benefit from the privileges granted to individuals from this sect to which the ruling elite belongs.

For instance, a large number of the young people we interviewed said that their primary concern was finding work. This has become more complicated than it used to be, especially for those who have lost their jobs because of the crisis, and the ensuing deterioration of the economic and security situation.

Both large and small business owners have reduced their staff and extended the working hours of their remaining employees. In an attempt to cut down expenses, heads of enterprises are either tasking a single employee with jobs that would usually require three people, or resorting to pay cuts in the hope that employees would quit voluntarily, a hope which is often met shortly thereafter.  A number of employees in one private company confirmed this, saying their wages saw a 20 per cent cut under the pretext that the political crisis had negatively affected the economy.

In other cases, the area in which a job seeker lives has become an important factor in deciding whether or not his or her job application will be accepted. Similarly, some employees have suffered pay cuts because the areas where they live are witnessing a lot of tension, forcing them to leave work early in order to pass through checkpoints. Mustapha, a salesman at a sunglasses store, used to work from 9am to 9pm for a monthly salary of SP 20,000 (400 US dollars).  Now he has to leave work every day at 6pm because the area of Mou‘addamiyya near Damascus where he lives is still witnessing unrest, and security checkpoints have been set up at the entrances to the neighbourhood, making it relatively unsafe for him to walk about at night. As a result, his salary was cut by SP 5,000 (100 USD).

The Al-Maydan area of Damascus, for its part, has, like many other Syrian localities, also become a hotspot.

“How could [the crisis] be ‘over’ when my job applications keep getting turned down because I live in Al-Maydan?” wonders Mu‘taz. The 18-year-old was hoping to find a job to help him cope with the burden of study expenses, but, like many other young men and women, his attempts have been to no avail.  Since Al-Maydan has witnessed many demonstrations against the regime, people from that area have become suspicious in the eyes of the regime; many business owners prefer to stay out of harm’s way and avoid hiring them.

Furthermore, a female employee in a clothing store said that different forms of harassment in the workplace have become widespread, be it attempts by business owners to cut down expenses, or political and sectarian discrimination.

This harassment is very obvious in the field of media, in both the public and private sectors, where officials, especially Alawis, are alerted if one of their staff members belongs to the opposition or has ideas that do not agree with the conspiracy theory they adopt.

An editor in a news website aligned with the regime testified to this. Because the website is secretly financed by Syrian intelligence, the people in charge did not hesitate to get rid of her because she did not share their beliefs and was not a fan of Al-Dunia, the privately owned Syrian satellite channel which endorses the regime. These officials used the fact that she brought her own computer to work rather than using the office computers as a pretext to fire her. In their eyes she had become a potential source of danger because she was an alleged mundassa, meaning a covert, malicious agent – a reference to opposition protesters which often appears in official rhetoric.

Since it is not easy to cope with high living expenses, we found that many were willing to sacrifice their principles, which they often keep to themselves, for the sake of their salary. This requires individuals to either master the art of fawning or completely isolate themselves from what is going on around them by not engaging in any conversation related to current events.

This also reveals the extent of the contradiction and confusion faced by Syrian youth; a journalist who spoke on condition of anonymity illustrated this point well.

“I don’t agree with the website’s political views or editorial line, even though I work in the political section. I might edit a report with which I do not agree, just to keep my job,” the journalist said. “At the end of the day, I am young and I have [financial] commitments.”

The situation in the civil service, where the nature of the employment mechanism and administration are known to all, is even more dramatic.  Even though the new government was so “generous” as to provide Syrian youth with an employment programme as part of its eleventh five-year plan, its actions have not matched its promises. As is always the case in Syria, every factor apart from competence steps in to decide who gets a job in the civil service and who does not; connections, sectarian identity, province of origin, and so on. Public establishments have put in place so many bureaucratic procedures to screen job applicants, just to obtain results that are already known. Such measures have become an object of criticism in local newspapers, even the ones aligned with the regime.

Many applicants who did not realise that this was a game fell victim to frustration and despair, according to young men and women who participated in such empty contests. One even went so far as to say that these contests were a failed attempt by the regime to fool the Syrian people in general, and the young specifically, in order to convince them of the validity of its reforms – a concept which has proved to be fake.

Furthermore, attempts to keep Sunnis out of administrative posts have also been exposed. In its attempts to advance its sectarian logic, the government promoted Alawi civil servants while reposting their Sunni counterparts to peripheral administrative centres.

An employee in the administrative centre of the Damascus province was replaced by an Alawi, and many of his friends were transferred to very marginal districts. This phenomenon is not limited to the capital; Sunni civilian and military personnel throughout Syria face very harsh treatment, even if they are loyal to the regime.

Conditions in Syria are constantly deteriorating; the difficulty faced in the work environment is but one of the many spheres of suffering Syria and its people are enduring.