World Bank: Jordan could face ‘shocks’ due to high poverty rates

The World Bank warned of shocks affecting Jordan’s economy resulting from rising poverty at rates higher than the period that preceded the coronavirus pandemic.

In its report on global poverty for the year 2023, the bank said the real income rates of Jordanians have remained suppressed and predicted that poverty rates will reduce rapidly during the current year due to the continued weak economic growth rates and the ongoing challenges facing the economy including limited job opportunities, labour market division, low labour productivity and weak household income growth rates.

The report pointed to the dominance of regional and global pressures on the Jordanian social and economic scene over the past decade, which led to a slowdown in growth rates.

According to the report, the labour market conditions remain the biggest threat to the well-being of Jordanian families, as employment recovered modestly, while the labour force participation rate remained low at 33.7 per cent.

The unemployment rate reached 22.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to 19.0 per cent during the same period in the fourth quarter of 2019, prior to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

READ: Jordan says Embassy building in Khartoum ransacked