أجيال من العاطلين عن العمل في العراق: التوظيف الحكومي كأزمة هيكلية متفاقمة
:المقدمة
يواجه العراق أزمة متفاقمة في سوق العمل، تتجلى في ارتفاع معدلات البطالة بين الشباب، وتضخم القطاع العام، وتحول الوظائف الحكومية من أداة لخدمة المجتمع إلى وسيلة لتحقيق توازنات سياسية. وتعود جذور هذه التحديات إلى غياب الإصلاحات الهيكلية في النظامين الاقتصادي والتعليمي، بالإضافة إلى انتشار عقلية "الوظيفة الآمنة" بين أوساط الشباب، وتراجع الثقة العامة في القطاع الخاص.
هذا الواقع يعكس خللاً عميقاً في الرؤية التنموية، حيث أُهمل دور الإنتاج والابتكار لصالح التوظيف الريعي، ما جعل من سوق العمل بيئة طاردة للإبداع ومحفزة للاتكال. ولا يمكن الخروج من هذه الأزمة دون معالجة جذرية تعيد الاعتبار لقيمة العمل، وتربط التعليم بمتطلبات السوق، وتعيد بناء الثقة في القطاع الخاص كركيزة أساسية للنمو والاستقرار.
1. Advanced Degrees Abroad: Education or Bureaucratic Shortcut?
In the past decade, Iraqi graduates have increasingly pursued postgraduate studies in neighboring countries, particularly Lebanon and Iran. Unofficial estimates suggest that over 12,000 Iraqi students enrolled in master’s and doctoral programs in these countries over the past five years (Department of Scholarships and Cultural Relations – Ministry of Higher Education, 2023). Some institutions are known to offer degrees in exchange for fees with minimal academic engagement, reducing education to a transactional step toward employment.
Despite the scale of this trend, Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education has taken limited action to reassess the accreditation of foreign universities. Unlike countries such as Germany or the Netherlands, which require international universities to rank highly in academic indices like QS or THE before recognizing their degrees, Iraq often relies on outdated lists or politically motivated agreements.
2. Education Outputs Misaligned with the Labor Market
According to World Bank data, over a quarter of Iraq’s university graduates are unemployed or entirely outside the labor force, even though higher education enrollment increased by 25% over the last decade (World Bank, 2022). Meanwhile, fewer than 20% of graduates annually secure public sector jobs, exposing a major disconnect between education and labor market demands.
This mismatch underscores the isolation of the educational system from economic needs, fostering migration, dependency, and underemployment—where many graduates work in jobs unrelated to their fields or below their qualifications.
3. A Bloated, Unproductive Public Sector
Iraq’s public sector employs over 4.5 million people, accounting for nearly 37% of the total labor force—one of the highest ratios globally (Ministry of Planning, 2023). In comparison, the U.S. federal government employs only around 800,000 people despite a population exceeding 330 million (Al Jazeera Report, 2022).
This administrative inflation has not translated into better productivity or public services. Instead, it consumes over 25% of Iraq’s annual state budget, with no clear plan to restructure or reduce the bureaucratic burden.
4. Employment as a Political Tool
Government employment in Iraq has increasingly become a political instrument used by ruling parties to secure loyalty and electoral support rather than to meet institutional needs. Job allocations are frequently dictated by sectarian and partisan considerations, rather than merit or institutional necessity.
A Ministry of Planning report indicates that 40% of job appointments between 2018 and 2021 were made without professional criteria, often issued through exceptional decisions or temporary contracts that were later regularized for political reasons (Ministry of Planning, 2022). In this way, public employment becomes a disguised political bribe—offered not as a reward for competence, but as a means to ensure allegiance and silence, undermining principles of fairness and meritocracy while reinforcing sectarian patronage within state institutions.
5. A Cultural Distortion: Education for the Sake of Hiring
Data from the Ministry of Higher Education shows that more than 1.1 million students graduated from Iraqi universities between 2015 and 2023, while only about 198,000 public sector jobs were created in the same period (Ministry of Higher Education, 2023).
Still, demand remains highest for fields perceived to guarantee government jobs, regardless of market relevance or students’ interests.
This mindset reflects the absence of career guidance and a transformation of education into a queue for government employment, rather than a source of innovation and competence. Meanwhile, cultural mistrust in the private sector persists due to weak labor laws, lack of social protection, and an unstable investment environment.
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6. Recommendations and Forecasts: Toward a Fair and Sustainable Development Model
Continuing to rely on public employment as the primary response to unemployment will deepen Iraq’s structural crisis, especially with over a million young Iraqis entering the labor market each year (Central Statistical Organization, 2023). Based on these dynamics, we recommend:
1. Reforming higher education to align with labor market needs by expanding applied and technical programs.
2. Empowering the private sector through incentivizing tax and banking policies, strengthening labor and social security laws, and improving the business environment.
3. Insulating public employment from political interference by empowering the Federal Service Council to ensure merit-based recruitment.
4. Restructuring the state bureaucracy to reduce overstaffing and improve service delivery.
5. Launching sustainable national employment programs in partnership with the private sector and international organizations, targeting marginalized youth and women.
الخاتمة:
يقف العراق اليوم عند مفترق طرق: فإما أن يواصل السير في نهج التوظيف الريعي، والمحاصصة، والولاءات السياسية، أو أن يتجه نحو اقتصاد منتج يُعلي من قيمة الكفاءة، ويكافئ الابتكار، ويوفّر للشباب مستقبلاً يليق بطموحاتهم.
إن طريق التنمية المستدامة يبدأ باستعادة كرامة المعرفة والعمل، لا بتكريس منطق المحسوبية والولاءات. فبناء دولة عادلة وقادرة يتطلب تغييرًا جذريًا في أولويات السياسات، نحو تمكين الأفراد على أساس الاستحقاق، وخلق بيئة تفتح المجال للإبداع والمبادرة، بعيدًا عن منطق التوظيف كأداة سياسية.
