The financial crisis in Lebanon .. the closure of hundreds of institutions and the layoffs of more than 25 thousand workers

Afif Diab - Beirut

Ali Al-Asaad stands bewildered after he has done without his work. The 30-year-old spends most of his time between sitting on a seat at the waterfront of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and looking for work after entering the list of “unemployed youth”.

Ali says to Al-Jazeera Net that his dismissal as a result of the financial and economic crisis plaguing Lebanon, and that the institution he worked for "expelled" him with a number of workers without receiving arbitrary exchange fees or compensation for his working years, and that his only refuge is the judiciary, where he hopes to obtain His right.

And Ali Al-Asaad is not the only Lebanese in this regard. Rather, there are thousands of others who were expelled from their business during the past six months and after the banks ’procedures, by limiting the withdrawal of deposits, the decrease in the purchasing value of the national currency, and the increase in the prices of various items and types by 50%. According to studies of statistical institutions in Lebanon, it is expected that the year 2020 will register more than 250 thousand unemployed.

Unemployment rates are increasing daily with the registration of hundreds of commercial, tourist and handicraft institutions, small factories, intermediate companies defaulting, and risks facing the continuation of large companies.

Closing of institutions
The president of the Syndicate of Restaurant and Café Owners in Lebanon, Tony Al-Rami, said that the financial crisis that has beset the country led to the closure of more than 785 institutions during the period between last September and the first of February.

In a statement, he indicated that last January, 240 institutions in Lebanon were closed.

A study of the Syndicate of Restaurant and Café Owners shows that 54.6% of the closed establishments were in Mount Lebanon Governorate, followed by the Capital Governorate of Beirut with 29.4%, while the rest of the percentages were distributed in the North, South and Bekaa (East) governorates.

The union study shows that the number of laid-off workers exceeded 25,000, indicating that the rest of the workers and employees work part-time and receive half of the salary. The union justifies these measures by reducing the percentage of its business by 75%.

In his statement, union leader Tony Al-Ramy says that some of the owners of the institutions "took a decision on economic resistance", stressing that the union is watching the government work to present a project and an action plan commensurate with the current situation in order to keep pace with the plans and future financial engineering, and instructing the banks to reschedule the dues with the provision of tax exemptions and settlements Reducing interest and loan installments.

An unparalleled crisis
The economic and financial crisis that has afflicted Lebanon has not been seen by any president of the Hamra Street Merchants Association and its branches in Beirut, Zuhair Itani.

The street, which is considered one of the most famous streets of Beirut and its commercial, economic and cultural pulse, is in a deplorable state, as Itani says to Al-Jazeera Net, and he adds that the decline in the Hamra market has not lived through the war that Lebanon witnessed for 15 years.

He says that more than 40 institutions closed in less than three months, and the situation is getting worse, and the risk of closure threatens dozens of shops, businesses, restaurants and cafes. He pointed out that the percentage of sales and business declined between 70% and 80%. Itani notes that some institutions have forcibly dismissed employees or reduced the number of working hours and wages to reduce losses after the purchasing value of the national currency has declined.

The scenery of Hamra Street is no different from that of the commercial city of Saida in southern Lebanon. The head of the City Traders Association, Ali Sharif, told Al Jazeera Net that more than 100 institutions have closed during the past months, explaining that the decline in sales reached in the last three months of the year 2019 and the beginning of this year to 70%.