Lebanon civil servants protest over pay cuts

Lebanese civil servants yesterday launched a strike against a recent salary reduction as the country’s economic crisis worsens.

The standoff, which was organised by the local Association of Public Administration Employees, came after public wages were reported to have lost almost 95 per cent of their purchasing value.

The official National News Agency quoted sources as saying that the employees had given “some exceptions of running urgent and necessary transactions for citizens.”

There are around a total of 300,000 civil servants in Lebanon, including military and security services personnel.

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Lebanon has, for years, been suffering a financial and social collapse after the local currency plunged in 2019. The crisis, which the World Bank described as one of the ten most severe crises globally since the mid-nineteenth century, has led to poverty rates rising and increased the scarcity in fuel, medicines and other basic commodities due to the continuous shortage in foreign currency needed for imports.

The Lebanese Economic Minister, Amin Salam, said yesterday that about 60 per cent of the Lebanese population were living “below the poverty line,” warning that the economy could worsen “unless financial and social reforms were adopted.”