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Nearly half of young Arabs want to start own business in 5 years, says survey

More young Arab men and women prefer to work in the private sector than pursue government jobs

Published: Tue 18 Jul 2023, 12:25 PM

Updated: Tue 18 Jul 2023, 12:28 PM

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The Arab world has a promising opportunity to promote youth entrepreneurship with nearly half of young Arabs planning to start their own business in the next five years, according to the 15th edition of Asda’a BCW Arab Youth Survey released on Tuesday.

The survey found that most young Arabs want to work in the private sector as the appeal of government jobs continues to decline.

The survey conducted face-to-face interviews with 3,600 Arab citizens aged 18 to 24 in their home nations from March 27 to April 12, 2023. It covered 53 cities across 18 Arab states.

Youth unemployment in the region is one of the highest in the world at over 26 per cent with nearly one in three youth aged 15 to 24 not engaged in employment, education or training, according to a World Bank study.

Another report by the United Nations found that the region must create 33.3 million jobs by 2030 to absorb the large number of young people entering the workforce.

Exploring Arab youth attitudes on their future careers, the survey found that 42 per cent of young Arab men and women would like to start their own business in the next five years. This desire was strongest in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries at 53 per cent, followed by the Levant at 39 per cent and North Africa at 37 per cent.

GCC youth were also more upbeat about their chances of going into business themselves, with 58 per cent saying that starting a business in their country was ‘very easy/somewhat easy’. This compares with 79 per cent of youth in the Levant and 73 per cent in North Africa who said it was ‘very difficult/somewhat difficult’ to start a business in their country.

Incentives

According to the research, tax breaks, reduced fees for startups, enhanced training and education, and government-backed loans would encourage more youth to become entrepreneurs. When it comes to their preferred industry, 15 per cent said they wanted to start a business in the technology sector, followed by e-commerce, the creative industries, manufacturing, real estate, the food business, and retail, hospitality and education.

“The fact that Arab youth are eager to start their own business is an encouraging sign, but it is also a natural response to the great difficulty in certain countries to find stable employment. Policymakers and the business community itself must do more to support those young men and women willing to do it alone,” said Sunil John, President, Mena, BCW and founder of Asda’a BCW.

“Meanwhile, the increasing diversification of the GCC economies is casting the private sector in a positive new light,” John added. “This is a promising trend for the long-term sustainability of the regional economy and a potential source of jobs and opportunity for Arab youth outside the Arabian Gulf.”

“However, this growing interest in a business career must be matched by companies themselves, with recruitment and career development pathways introduced to empower the region’s rapidly evolving Arab national workforce,” John said.

Private sector jobs

One of the significant trends that the survey has documented over the years is the increasing preference of Arab youth for private-sector jobs over a career in government.

Compared to nearly half of all respondents in 2019 who said that they preferred to work in the government sector, less than a third (30 per cent) feel the same now. Meanwhile, a third of Arab youth said they would prefer to work in business, a 13 per cent increase from 2022.

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