A new report by UNRWA (the UN Agency providing humanitarian relief for Palestinian refugees) states that “Despite the non-payment of salaries,the labour force surveys confirm that Palestinian public employees continued to turn up for work and perform their duties throughout first-half 2006. Thus the 160,000 plus public sector employees were counted as employed during this period even though they were not fully paid…
Under normal conditions, the 160,000 plus public employees should have received a total of about USD 565.6 million in salaries during first-half 2006. In reality, they received the equivalent of only 2.5-months’ salary — USD 235.7 million during the six-month period — less than 42 percent their due…
The most direct and immediate effect of the non-payment of salaries was the loss by one-fourth of the work force of its main source of income. With average households of about 6.3 persons in first-half 2006, the loss of income has directly affected more than one million persons — more than one-quarter of the oPt population…
The impact of the current phase of the economic crisis has hit refugees in the oPt harder than the population at large with respect to employment and poverty. Refugees are less likely to find work than non-refugees, they are more dependent on public sector employment than nonrefugees, they are more likely to be unemployed than non-refugees and they account for a higher ratio of those living in deep poverty.”