Unemployment in Gaza hits 60 percent

Unemployment in the Gaza has reached 60 percent said the Public Workers Union in the Gaza Strip, reported the Palestine Chronicle on 28 September.

The total number of unemployed is now 213,000 who in turn are responsible for the welfare of 900,000 family members.

"Unemployed people and their families live in very difficult circumstances due to the accumulated economic crises," said the PWU. "Seventy per cent are classed as being in 'severe poverty'."

The PWU asked the Palestinian unity government to support those in need.

In May, the International Monetary Fund said that recovery in the Gaza Strip was going much more "slowly than expected" after Israel's onslaught of the coastal enclave in summer 2014. The economy had reportedly falled into recession in 2014 for the first time since 2006.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development said Gaza would be uninhabitable by 2020 in a report published on 1 September.

The report said unemployment had reached 44 percent – the highest level ever recorded.

"Socioeconomic conditions [in Gaza] are at their lowest point since 1967," it stated.