40 % increase in unemployment causes poverty line spike

The poverty line is on the rise in Afghanistan as unemployment increases by 40 percent in the country.

The minister of labour and social affairs in commemoration of International Workers’ Day has considered unemployment  a major problem in the country.

“The level of unemployment in the country is higher than 40 percent which also caused the poverty line also increase,” Nasrin Orya Khail, minister of labour and social affairs said.

Compounding the unemployment problem is the fact that the price of basic necessities in Afghanistan has skyrocketed over the past year.

Driving factors towards increasing instability, according to Afghans, is high rate of unemployment and poverty in the war-wrecked country.

Though there is no exact statistic about the rate of unemployment in Afghanistan, it is said that some 40 percent of the country’s 25 million populations are jobless and some 5 million Afghans live under poverty line in the war-battered nation.

In the meantime, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry calls for impunity of  investors in the country; citing nearly 49 businessmen have been kidnapped in the past week.

“The Daesh and Taliban are not as serious threats for us as the abductors are. The government should prevent the kidnappers and does not let them to abduct our people,” Khan Jan Alkozai, deputy of chamber of commerce said.

Abductions for ransom regularly happen in Afghanistan by bandits, local militiamen and Taliban militants.

Afghanistan still faces insecurity after the recent bloody suicide attack in Kabul that killed and wounded hundreds of Afghans.