On Labor Day: The local affairs editor at (LANA) calls for reviewing and controlling the Libyan labor market.

Tripoli, May 01, 2023 (LANA) - Workers in various countries of the world revived the International Workers' Day, which falls on the first of May, with demonstrations, vigils, and mass marches calling for better working conditions and higher wages. These demonstrations dominated many capitals, especially in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Clashes between demonstrating workers and security forces resulted in the arrest of hundreds of workers in many countries, while workers in countries dominated by dictatorial regimes committed themselves to the folkloric celebration.

The editor of local affairs at the Libyan News Agency, at the beginning of his comment, saluted the Libyan workers, calling on this occasion the responsible authorities in our country to review and control the Libyan labor market and amend outdated labor laws in line with the size of the Libyan economy and local and international changes.

The editor stressed the need to confront facts and taboos that have been kept silent for decades in the Libyan labor market, and to address the chronic imbalance that resulted in Libyans' reluctance to work.

The editor noted that hundreds of thousands of foreign workers of more than 50 nationalities are working today in Libya in various sectors amidst chaos and the complete absence of the state. They do not pay taxes, water or electricity, and they also do not enjoy health insurance.

The local affairs editor confirmed that more than (90) percent of the workers in the sectors of agriculture and marketing wholesale and sectoral agricultural production, construction contractors and workers, poultry and livestock breeders, shepherds, cleaners, and technical workers in carpentry and iron workshops, and in car repair workshops of all kinds, and equipment repair Home appliances, air conditioners, etc., are foreigners, indicating that foreign contractors now control agricultural and animal production in Libya and its marketing and the food market due to the Libyans’ reluctance to pursue these professions as a direct result of the wrong policies produced by the “rentier state” system and the failure of the education system. specifically, and the education system in general.

The editor believed that the dependence of the Libyan economy on oil resources by (95) percent since its discovery and the export of the first barrel of it in the sixties of the last century, transformed the Libyan productive working society into a consumption society and hundreds of thousands of idle employees.

The editor asked about the future of a country whose population does not exceed (7) million people, including nearly (600) thousand schools and teachers (at the rate of one teacher for every two students) and (1.5) million employees crowding into the public sector, most of them in disguised or behavioral unemployment, which drains more than half of the oil resources, warning of the impasse into which the state slipped after the policy of raising salaries and extending the government spending bill outside development projects, especially if oil prices fell in the global market, which is expected at any time.

In the conclusion of his comment, the Local Affairs Editor of (LANA) stressed the need to remedy these wrong policies before it is too late, especially since the value of Libyan oil extraction, according to experts, is not high, not to mention its proximity to the largest consumers in the old continent, and the investment of oil and gas resources in diversifying Sources of income and creating a real revolution in the Libyan labor market through developing vocational education and launching development projects in the sectors of tourism, agriculture, transport, communications, and others.

(LANA)