The provincial council of the multi-ethnic, oil-rich Kirkuk is working to find a mechanism to fairly employ 7,000 locals from all components.
The council, in its first meeting after taking office on August 24, decided to form a special committee for this mission.
Ahmed Kirkuki, a member of the Kirkuk provincial council, told KirkukNow on August 26 that 7,000 jobs are available in all Iraqi ministries. "Indeed, we have not discussed how to employ them yet, but have decided to work together to set a mechanism that guarantees the rights of all components," he added.
The northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, located 238 kilometers north of Baghdad, is an ethnically mixed province with 1.7 million Kurds, Sunni and Shiite Arabs, and Turkmen. It has long been at the center of disputed territories between Baghdad and Erbil.
Arabs held all senior positions in Iraq, including the Kirkuk governor, up to 2003. Since 2005, Kurds have held the governor position and other senior positions up to October 2017 when Iraqi troops ousted Kurdish forces following the declaration of victory over the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Kurdish referendum for independence.
The Kurdish governor was replaced in late 2017 by the acting governor, Rakan al-Jibouri, an Arab, who currently opposes the election of the new Kurdish governor.
The Arab alliance and the Turkmen, holding 7 provincial seats out of 16, boycotted council sessions.
"Their boycott has not suspended our meetings and everything is running smoothly," Kirkukli said. "However, we have decided to visit these parties next week to convince them to join the meetings."
The unemployment rate in Iraq saw no significant changes in 2023 compared to the previous year 2022 and remained at around 15.53 percent. However, 2023 marked the second consecutive decline in the unemployment rate, according to Germany-based statista.com, a global data and business intelligence platform with an extensive collection of statistics, reports, and insights on over 80,000 topics from 22,500 sources in 170 industries.
People prefer working in the public sector due to shorter work hours, better pay, and retirement benefits, while the private sector struggles to provide easy and well-paid jobs.
Hasan Majid, head of the KDP provincial bloc, stated that they have not made any decisions regarding the committee for the 7,000 jobs. "We will decide later."
Kirkuk, Iraq's second-largest oil reserve, along with many provinces of Iraq, regularly witnesses demonstrations and protests by postgraduates demanding state employment as the private sector has stagnated due to successive wars, instability, and lack of state budget for investment in public services.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) reported last June that the unemployment rate in Iraq has risen from 9% in the early 1990s to 14.2% in 2021.
Out of 40 million Iraqis, 9.2 million are employed, while Iraq's state-dominated economy is led by the oil sector, which provides approximately 85% of state revenue. The government now pays 400% more in salaries than it did 15 years ago. Around three-quarters of the state's expenditures in 2020 went to paying civil servants in the public sector.
*This story has been produced as part of the 'Budget is Your Right' initiative, with support from the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
