Muhammad Haider, a security officer in the oil fields in southern Iraq, thought he was safe after he signed a new one-year work contract to guard oil installations. But after three days, he found himself without a job.
"Our company ascended to us and set us up on the sidewalk," the 38-year-old said during his protest outside the headquarters of Basra Oil Company, the local partner of foreign companies.
The man currently spends his time at home or searching in vain for jobs on the Internet that are seldom found in an economy in crisis.
One of the thousands of workers in the Iraqi oil sector who were laid off this year after the decline in crude prices as a result of the Corona epidemic (Covid 19), is struggling to find another source of income.
And Iraq asked international oil companies last March to reduce their budgets by 30% due to the collapse in crude prices. Southern energy companies responded by cutting costs.
Subcontractors, including security, construction and transport companies, have laid off thousands of workers, according to local authorities.
Mohammed Abadi, a local official in Basra Governorate, where most of the southern oil fields are located, said that companies had dispensed between 10 thousand and 15 thousand Iraqis among the approximately 80 thousand Iraqis working in oil fields.
He added that Iraqi employees, most of them in companies that work subcontractors, were forced to take leave without pay or leave work altogether.
Iraq has pledged to reduce oil production by at least one million barrels per day in the context of OPEC cuts. Iraq exported 3.2 million barrels per day last May. The cut reduced government revenues, of which more than 90 percent is oil.
The government may have to cut public sector salaries, in a move that will further anger Iraqis who organized protests last year against government corruption allegations and job shortages.