Demographics, labor force participation and unemployment

Abstract EN

To better understand the demographic trends in Jordan, it is useful to relate these trends to the historical population displacement in the region and the geostrategic location of Jordan.

Jordan’s location in the middle of the Arab World influences labor mobility to and from Jordan.

On one hand, Jordan is surrounded by Arab countries with large populations like Iraq, Syria and Egypt; the citizens of these countries can enter Jordan without an entry visa, except for Iraq lately.

On the other hand, Jordan is close to the rich Gulf countries, which have abundant natural resources and a small population.

The availability and quality of jobs and the higher wages in the GCC have pulled hundreds of thousands of Jordanian workers to migrate to those countries and live there for years.

This flow of people and workers to and from Jordan characterizes Jordan’s labor market giving it some distinctive features that leads to an unstable labor supply model, and complicates its forecast and development.

The analysis in this paper will be mainly based on the Jordan Panel Labor Market Survey (JLMPS), which was conducted in 2010.