Tackling Another Major Challenge in Iraq: Unemployment

But everyone involved seems aware that the centers are only one part of fixing a giant problem in a country where many service industries simply do not exist. At a training center in Iraq's Labor Ministry, Suraa Yahya was teaching English recently to a half-dozen young men. She asked the students to read from a list of services printed in their textbooks and decide whether they were available in Iraq.

First came getting medical advice over the telephone. "Not unless if your friend is a doctor," a student said, after a long pause. Grocery shopping by telephone? No. Professional dog walkers? No. Clothes for sale in vending machines?

"No, but that is not a good idea," a man said. "The people who are selling clothes would lose their jobs."

In a nearby Labor Ministry recruitment center, dozens of applicants lined up with résumés in hand, awaiting interviews for management jobs. Most graduated from college at least a year ago and have been unemployed since.

Ali Jima Abid submitted his application to the center last August, but was only recently called for an interview. Before the invasion, he worked in Iraq's Transportation Ministry, but he lost his job soon after Baghdad fell. To make ends meet, he said, he has been selling snacks and cigarettes from a roadside stand.

"Like everyone, I am feeling desperate and don't think I will ever find a job," said Abid, 30, who was spending his second consecutive day waiting on a bench in the ministry's lobby because a blackout had caused the previous day's interviews to be canceled.

"At this point I will accept anything, even if it is not what I am qualified to do," he said.

The manager of the ministry's recruitment center, Riyadh Hassam, said a major part of the problem was the country's inability to attract private investment because of the security situation. With few if any international financial institutions operating in the country, the type of financing needed for large development projects that spur growth and provide jobs is lacking, he said.

"Sometimes when I think about the size of the problem, I think it will take five years to fix," he said. "Sometimes I think it will take more. Sometimes I think it will take forever."

Unaccustomed to competing for business after years of embargoes that limited imports, Iraq's private sector is struggling to appeal to consumers who have access to more foreign goods. "There's a flood of new products coming in that are preferred by people here," said the U.S. reconstruction official. "So Iraqi goods that did just fine before are not able to compete."

Some job seekers say they have already given up. Down on his luck and with a family of 12 to support, Ahmed Habib paid a visit to the only people in Baghdad who seemed to be hiring: Iraq's police and army.

But the man who took his application asked for a $200 bribe, Habib said. Unable to afford the payoff, he was turned away and now spends most days waiting on the side of a road with other jobless laborers, hoping someone might offer $10 for a morning's work.

"If there is no work, I stay until sunset and go back home," said Habib, 30. "I go back and tell [my family] they should sleep because there is no dinner."

Special correspondent Bassam Sebti contributed to this report.