Palestinian unemployment reaches 15-year high

Palestinians attend a protest against unemployment and poverty outside the Palestinian Prime Ministry in Gaza City Gaza on 24 November 2016 [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]

Unemployment rate in Palestine has risen to 29.2 per cent during the third quarter of the current year, registering the highest hike in 14 and a half years, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) announced yesterday.

According to Quds Press, the PCBS said that the record unemployment rate was 30.3 per cent in 2003.

The PCBS also noted that the unemployment rate reached 29.2 per cent during the third quarter compared to 29 in the second quarter.

There are some 1.413 million Palestinians who are in employment, 890,200 in the occupied West Bank and 522,900 in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Some 412,800 are unemployed; 243,800 in Gaza and 169,000 in the occupied West Bank or 46.6 per cent in Gaza and 19 per cent in the West Bank.

The high unemployment rates in the Gaza Strip have been linked to the stifling 11-year long Israeli –led siege on the enclave and the numerous Israeli offensive against the Strip.

Read: Unemployment in Gaza reaches highest levels since 2014

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