Omar is a 22-year-old man living in Beirut with his parents and two brothers. After finishing school four years ago, he did a three-year degree in Computer Science, graduating in 2023. His parents covered the costs of his education, first at a private French school in Beirut and later at a private university. Omar did well in school and university. He had envisioned securing a job after graduation—“maybe an entry-level position at first, and eventually, I’d work my way up and earn more.” Over the past few years, Omar has actively searched for a job but has struggled to find one. Occasionally, he helps his brother at his cell phone shop, but beyond that, he spends most of his time at home or meeting friends at a nearby café.

Zeina is 27 years old and was born and raised in Sour. After graduating from high school in 2017, she moved to Paris to pursue her studies in filmmaking and graduated in 2019. Unable to find a job in Lebanon, she left again in 2020 and worked in Austria for a while. However, in 2023, she decided to return—feeling stagnant in her job and missing her country, family, and friends. Back in Lebanon, she began working on freelance film projects.

“Just when things were finally going well and I was earning some money, the war broke out. All projects stopped. I decided to leave Lebanon again for a few months. Now I’m back, but everything is unstable. I don’t know how long the peace will last, and I can’t really settle down or find a stable job.”

Zeina now spends most of her time in Sour, reading, watching Netflix, or helping her mother take care of her little niece.

Firas is 25 years old and lives with his parents and three brothers in a village near Saida. He left school after Brevet and began working at the reception of a local gym. Over time, he completed a personal trainer certification and started working in various gyms across Beirut. However, the job became increasingly frustrating due to low salaries and long working hours. “I spent most of my salary on transportation and was out of the house six days a week from 7 AM to 7 PM. Renting a place in Beirut wasn’t an option—it was simply too expensive.”

During the war, commuting to Beirut daily became unsafe, and forced Firas to miss work. Instead of understanding his situation, his managers deducted the missed days from his already low salary. “In the end, I had to quit. Now, I’m unemployed. I tried finding another job, but it didn’t work out. Salaries are so low that I can’t afford rent, and if I stay at home, my entire income goes towards transportation.”

Omar, Zeina, and Firas may not have much in common, except for three facts: they are all young, educated, and have been unemployed in Lebanon for years. Despite their efforts to find work, each of them has now reached a point where they seem to have given up on their professions. Instead, they live day by day, half-heartedly searching for opportunities while holding onto the distant hope that one day, Lebanon’s situation—and their own—will improve.

According to the 2022 Follow-up Labour Force Survey, Lebanon’s unemployment rate rose from 11.4% in 2018/2019 to 29.6% in 2022, driven by the severe financial and economic crisis that the country has been facing since 2019. Although no recent accurate numbers are available, UNDP estimated in October 2024 that unemployment was expected to reach 32.6% in 2024, mainly due to the loss of labour in key sectors. This crisis has deepened poverty, weakened economic performance, suppressed wages, increased labor migration, and prolonged unemployment. Young people, in particular, struggle to find jobs. Youth unemployment was estimated at 23.3% before the crisis but nearly doubled to 48% in 2022. A 2016 UNDP report highlighted that Lebanon would need to create six times more job opportunities to absorb the 23,000 new individuals entering the workforce annually.

The economic crisis has impacted the labour market in two key ways: On the one hand, the lack of development in industry, manufacturing, and agriculture leaves limited job opportunities for Lebanon’s highly skilled youth. On the other hand, salaries no longer keep up with the high cost of living, making it nearly impossible for young professionals to sustain themselves. For many young Lebanese, emigration remains the only option—a chance to work in a country where their skills seem valued and fairly compensated. According to a survey conducted by the Arab Youth Survey in 2020,  77% of Lebanese youth aged between 18 and 24 expressed willingness to emigrate.

However, for many young people, migration is not an option—whether due to financial constraints, visa restrictions, personal considerations or the deep sense of demotivation and frustration that prolonged unemployment has left them with. Over time, their situation leads to low confidence and limits their ability to seek alternatives, ultimately trapping them in a cycle of uncertainty and stagnation.

Omar describes his dead-end attempts at finding a job as follows: 

“After graduating from university, I relied on my uncle. He owns several companies, so I thought he could either hire me or help me find a job. He tried, but everything I was offered was far below what I had hoped for or they eventually decided to move forward with somebody else. For a while, I applied for jobs through a website run by the Ministry of Labour, but I never even got a response. I remember feeling oddly happy when one company at least replied to say they couldn’t offer me a job. After a few months, I lost motivation and eventually stopped trying.”

The frustration is compounded by financial insecurity. Zeina shares how the lack of income affects her daily life:

“I still have to ask my parents or my sister for money—sometimes just to go out or buy clothes. I feel like a ten-year-old girl.”

When asked about their daily lives, Zeina, Omar, and Firas express a shared sense of frustration, apathy, and hopelessness.

“I spend my days playing video games, talking to my friends online and sometimes going to the gym in my neighbourhood. In general, I don’t do a lot, I just wait for something to happen that changes my life.” – Omar describes his routine.

Zeina shares a similar struggle: “My daily screen time used to be around nine hours, just watching reels and chatting with friends I don’t even meet in real life anymore. I stay up until 3 or 4 AM and wake up at noon or 1 PM. Still, I feel tired all the time.”

In the long run, unemployment not only deepens their financial instability but also erodes their social connections. It leads to unhealthy coping mechanisms, making it even harder to break the cycle of marginalisation, especially with the lack of proper public policies addressing youth unemployment.