Syria is Stuck (In The Middle Ages)

I’m thinking of traveling through the Middle East this summer, and in the course of my research, I’ve read a ton about Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.

The U.S. State Department gives an idea of what Syria’s economy is like:

“Syria is a middle-income, developing country with an economy based on agriculture, oil, industry, and tourism. However, Syria’s economy faces serious challenges and impediments to growth, including: a large and poorly performing public sector; declining rates of oil production; widening non-oil deficit; wide scale corruption; weak financial and capital markets; and high rates of unemployment tied to a high population growth rate. In addition, Syria currently is the subject of U.S. economic sanctions…”

Sounds like a basket case. It’s pretty sad when runaway population growth causes increasing unemployment.

“Agriculture [...] accounts for 25% of GDP and employs 42% of the total labor force.”

I’ve got to say, that’s really sad. It’s 2008 — wave of the future and all — and Syria has nearly half its workforce doing the menial labor of growing and gathering food. I’m pretty sure that the characters on the show Lost manage to employ less than 20% of their population gathering food.

In the United States, only 1.8% of of workers are employed in agriculture, which allows the other 98% to pursue whatever it is they choose.

U.S. State Department - Syria: Background Note

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