Unemployment in Tunisia Fuels Protests

Tunisia

Tensions are running high in Tunisia only a few days after the fifth anniversary of the country's popular revolution that inspired the "Arab Spring". Popular anger and resentment at soaring unemployment levels has been growing in Tunisia's poorest communities, raising fears of an explosion of protests similar to those that ousted former president Zine El Abedine Ben Ali five years ago. 

Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi on Wednesday acknowledged "the current government inherited a very difficult situation" with "700,000 unemployed and 250,000 of them young people who have degrees."

Unemployment rates had risen to 15.3 percent by the end of 2015 compared with 12 percent in 2010, driven by poor economic growth and a decline in investment in both public and private sectors coupled with a rise in the number of university graduates, who now comprise one third of jobless Tunisians.