“Unemployment rate in Lebanon may have exceeded 50 to 60%, after this percentage was about 11% in 2009,” said the Acting Director-General of Ministry of Labor, Marlene Atallah.

Atallah added in a television interview, that “more than 10,000 dismissed employees filed complaints at the Ministry of Labor in the recent period, and this means that the percentage of these people has doubled.” She called on every person who get dismissed from his job, to go to the Ministry of Labor before he signs any document, in order to file a complaint. “We are following up on thousands of complaints in this context and directing those who are needed to the Labor Arbitration Council.”

She pointed out that the most sectors that witnessed large employee dismissal, are the services sectors such as the banking sector, the hotel sectors, the construction and contracting sector, as well as the media sector. Adding that “public sector employees are now absent from their work due to their inability to secure transportation to join their jobs.”

In response to a question about the value of the salary she receives in her job, she said that it does not exceed 3 million and 500 thousand pounds.