Aleppo – Mohammed al-Omar

The youth generation in Aleppo is struggling to cope with difficult living conditions, as their wages in the private sector decline and barely cover their personal expenses.

Young men and women are accepting jobs with low salaries due to the limited available opportunities and the urgent need for any monthly income to help cover living costs, which become increasingly difficult day after day.

Mahmoud Sunkari (35 years old), a father of three children, works as an accountant in a supermarket in the New Aleppo neighborhood and earns 400,000 Syrian pounds per week for 9 hours of work each day, with no day off.

Sunkari told Enab Baladi that the salary of an ordinary worker in the supermarket does not exceed 200,000 pounds per week, and shop owners often resort to employing teenagers under 18 years old, especially school dropouts, hoping to accept a salary no more than 800,000 pounds monthly.

As for the salary of a sales representative responsible for a specific section of the supermarket, it ranges between 300,000 and 400,000 pounds per week, according to Sunkari, who noted that these salaries are not given to beginners immediately upon starting work, as workers need to spend several months on the job before their salaries begin to increase.

The young man confirmed that his salary is enough for just 10 days at most, and he continuously searches for additional work to cover his expenses, but his current working hours from 9 AM to 6 PM prevent him from finding another job.

The young man finds no place that offers evening shifts starting from 6 PM, especially given the current conditions, as most shops and economic activities close by midnight at the latest.

Unemployment trap leads youth into exploitation

Mohammad Abdul Karim (22 years old) spent long months searching for a job to help cover his personal expenses and the costs of his studies in law school.

The lack of opportunities pushed him to accept any job, no matter how low the pay. He told Enab Baladi that he is the second son in a family of four brothers and two sisters, and his father can no longer cover the expenses of all six children, so he has to manage on his own and accept any available work.

Abdul Karim indicated that he found a job opportunity in a clothing factory in the Layramoun area, with an 8-hour daily shift and a salary of one million pounds per month, along with one day off per week.

He was initially informed that transportation was provided, but it turned out that he had to travel from his home to the university square, where a van would pick up the workers and take them to the factory.

He could not endure more than one week before quitting the job, due to the danger of the area at the time, with sniper fire and clashes occurring nearby in areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

After extensive searching efforts, Abdul Karim managed to find a job with an online marketing company, which does not provide a fixed monthly income, but the company pays him 65 cents per working hour. He needs to work around 6 hours daily to receive approximately 100 dollars at the end of each month (around one million Syrian pounds).

Private sector work is not enough

Shatha Saleh (21 years old), an English language student, experienced working in educational institutes as an accountant and supervisor, as well as teaching primary school students in private schools, yet she was exploited, as her salary did not exceed 700,000 pounds, under the pretext that she was not yet graduated, even though her shift lasted 7 hours each day, and she had to pay transportation costs of about 200,000 pounds.

When she decided to leave work and rely on private tutoring classes, she could not find more than four students to whom she could offer lessons at their homes, earning no more than 300,000 pounds from these classes by the end of each month.

The youth in Aleppo suffer from exploitation in the job market of the private sector, while the vast majority of employers provide no type of benefits for workers, such as health insurance or a clear vacation and incentive system.

There is an absence of any kind of officially registered contracts in the employment relationship, which makes workers vulnerable to arbitrary dismissal at any moment and threatens them with a surplus of unemployed individuals always ready to take their place if they do not comply with low wages and continue working.