each afternoon in Baghdad, government employee Amir Ahmed clocks out of his ministry process, changes clothes in his automobile, and activates a taxi-hailing app — starting a 2d shift to make ends meet.
Ahmed explained that his government income barely covers critical expenses together with utilities and college fees. “despite the greater paintings I do, i am compelled to borrow cash if salaries are behind schedule by means of simply two or three days, due to the family’s constant prices,” he informed Shafaq news.
It has grow to be commonplace in Iraq for employees to take 2d jobs in shops, personal agencies, and places of work. The phenomenon also extends to ladies, lots of whom tackle aspect paintings, now and again from within their houses.
The fashion highlights each a deep financial disaster and flaws in Iraq’s revenue scale, which now not matches inflation and the soaring price of dwelling. professionals warn that the situation is creating wider social and financial problems.
Over sixty one percentage of the population is beneath 30 — nearly 28.7 million human beings in a rustic of forty seven million — but kids unemployment has handed 36 percent, while young girls face prices above sixty five percent, in keeping with ILO data. each yr, approximately seven hundred,000 young Iraqis input the exertions force, but the country can no longer absorb them, and the non-public quarter remains too weak to fill the gap.
Economist Ahmed Abdul Rabbo defined to Shafaq news, “The income of employees does now not hold pace with rising every day fees, showing the fragility of the monetary system in imparting good enough pay for the effort put into government put up.”
He pressured that the solution isn’t always to prohibit 2nd professions but to reform the profits device and improve the personal area so it could soak up young workers in place of competing with government personnel for the same opportunities.
Iraq’s revenue gadget is based on professional pay scales, schooling level, job grade, family allowances, and, in some institutions, incentives and beyond regular time hours. but, these measures fail to shield most employees, who nevertheless receive meager earning from the overall of these administrative mechanisms.
Psychologist Manahil al-Saleh informed Shafaq news that operating two jobs leaves personnel with little time for their households. The strain weakens their ability to communicate with kids and spouses. They cannot provide the emotional and mental support their families need.
