Employment

Syrian public sector workers set for 400% pay rise

January 7, 2025, 3:55 PM

Shoppers in a market in Douma. The Syrian public sector has salaries that place workers below the poverty line

Employees get $25/month
Increase to cost $127m
Unfrozen assets to fund

The Syrian caretaker government plans to hike public sector salaries by 400 percent next month after completing an administrative restructuring, the country’s finance minister said Sunday.

Public sector workers currently earn around $25 per month, putting them below the poverty line.

The increase, estimated to cost 1.65 trillion Syrian pounds, or about $127 million at current rates, will be financed by existing state resources plus a combination of regional aid, new investments and efforts to unfreeze Syrian assets held abroad, Reuters reported.

“(This is) the first step towards an emergency solution to the economic reality in the country,” Mohammed Abazeed, the finance minister, told Reuters.

The government expects to retrieve up to $400 million in frozen Syrian assets abroad, which could co-finance the initial government expenses.

Around 1.3 million registered public sector employees are expected to benefit from the wage increase, following an evaluation designed to remove fictitious employees from the payroll.

It will be targeted at those with sufficient expertise, academic qualifications and the necessary skills for reconstruction.

The US is expected to ease sanctions on Syria imminently, after years of financial pressure on the Assad regime, which ruled for decades.

Unemployment in Syria reached 53 percent in 2023. As of 2022, poverty affected 69 percent of the population, and extreme poverty reached 27 percent, up from a negligible level in 2009.