The jobless rate in Gaza was at 45.2 percent at the end of last year, one of the highest figures in the world. (However, that’s slightly better than the 45.7 percent rate recorded at the end of 2009).
Over the past five years, real wages have plunged by 34 percent, according to a survey by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The report noted that the ban on almost all exports has hurt private business enterprises in Gaza the hardest.
“These are disturbing trends and the refugees, who make up two-thirds of Gaza’s 1.5 million population, were the worst hit,” said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness in a statement.
“It is hard to understand the logic of a man-made policy which deliberately impoverishes so many and condemns hundreds of thousands of potentially productive people to a life of destitution,”
