"‘Majority of workers in Jordan are not paid enough to afford a decent life’", 7 October 2018

Working conditions in the Kingdom remain "far from the decent work standards" and continue to deteriorate in several economic sectors, according to a position paper issued... by the Phenix Centre for Economic and Informatics Studies in cooperation with the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation... Low wage levels were... highlighted, alongside the high cost of living and the consequent increase in poverty rates, warning that "the majority of workers in Jordan are not paid enough to afford a decent life". According to the official figures issued by the Social Security Corporation for 2017, 47 per cent of the workers in the formal economy did not earn more than JD400 per month, while only 7.3 per cent received monthly wages of more than JD1,000. Restrictions on the workers' freedom of association were the main issue facing the correct application of decent work standards, according to the paper, which charged that "the government still refuses to make the legislative amendments needed to end the ban on the establishment of new trade unions outside the official framework, which currently represents as little as a 5 per cent of the total labour force"...