Unemployment together with several pressing economic and social issues has been posing another challenge to the Palestinian people. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) the unemployment rate in Palestine reached 24 percent in the second quarter of 2022.
Graduates in Gaza whose number is increasing have become accustomed to waiting in endless queues to compete in a shrinking pool of jobs.
Through their journeys to find ways out of unemployment some graduates started to embrace shifts in their careers while others decided to flee the Gaza enclave to get a job abroad after realizing that there were not enough government or UNRWA jobs to accommodate the flood of graduates.
Nonetheless the growing digital technologies encouraged some Gazan youths to search for jobs online which would save them the trouble of traveling abroad or venturing into new fields of study.
In light of the multiplying difficulties imposed on the Gaza Strip due to electricity cuts and other issues some communities and incubators in the Gaza Strip have assumed the responsibility of setting excellent environments for youths in Gaza. They also provide training on essential freelancing skills in order to enable the graduates to use their knowledge as a source of income by connecting with international clients.
Stories about successful freelancers who graduated from several freelance training projects implemented in Gaza gradually became viral. Many youths ended up making far more money working in more flexible workplaces than they would if they were working for someone else and therefore managed to tackle unemployment by getting online jobs.
Mohammed Alassar one of the successful freelancers in Gaza graduated in 2017 from the Faculty of Civil Engineering but such a major did not seem to get him any desired job in the labor market. He says that he was made to think that traveling outside of Gaza is the only way unemployment can be overcome. Yet he didn’t prefer to do so simply because he loves to stay in Gaza. As soon as he heard about freelance training programs he started to submit applications one after the other.
“It was not easy at the beginning as my application was not granted at first” Mohammed recounted adding that in 2019 he managed to join training on graphic design in the Login Project implemented by the Business and Technology Incubator (BTI).
Mohammed told the PIC that he is now able to reach out to the world and compete in the global market after a lot of hard work and learning soft skills and English language skills. He’s got several fixed-term and long-term jobs. Not only this but he also has become a professional trainer in the field of graphic design encouraging his trainees to build up their profiles on freelancing platforms and to start charging for their services online.
“I used to think that I was besieged in the Gaza Strip but now I believe that I am captivating the world on my screen” Mohammed stressed concluding that his contracts with clients from six different continents are “irreplaceable”.
– Amna Shabana is a PIC writer.
