Gaza's unemployed youth look online for work
Young professionals in the Gaza Strip use local and international online freelancing platforms to find job opportunities and a steady source of income.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Online freelancing platforms are a major source of income for young professionals in the Gaza Strip who are freelancing in different fields via websites that connect them with potential clients from around the world. These websites present an alternative to the local labor market, where the unemployment rate is skyrocketing. In light of the continuation of the Israeli blockade on Gaza for the ninth year in a row, these platforms may have turned into a permanent solution to unemployment.
Since the start of the blockade in 2007, the number of university graduates in Gaza has increased to 30,000 a year, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, while unemployment rates have risen. These young graduates are part of the highest registered unemployment rate in the world, which soared to more than 60% at the end of 2014. According to a World Bank report issued in May, this number stood at 34.8% during the first quarter of 2006, i.e., before Hamas took control of Gaza.
Young Gazans are trying to create temporary employment opportunities to escape the clutches of poverty by all means available. Every day there is a new way and a job opportunity created by these young professionals.
After failing to find employment opportunities in the local market, Hamdan Abu Taima, 30, has been developing and designing professional websites and electronic systems for companies since 2008, via numerous international freelance platforms, such as Upwork (formerly oDesk), Freelancer and Elance, and regional freelance platforms, such as Mostaql and Nabbesh, to the point that these freelance jobs became his primary and only source of income.
