Sunni Islam and high unemployment

I was curious as to the levels of unemployment in Britain and found an interesting chart listing employment levels of persons from various countries.

How different immigrant groups perform

The lowest levels of employment all seem to be amongst immigrants from Sunni muslim countries while persons from neighboring countries, with the same skin color just different religions, seem to have much greater levels of employment.

As an example the people below are all from the same general region and have the same general appearance but there are big differences in their employment levels.

Asia:
Bangladesh - 40.01% employed (Sunni muslim majority)
Pakistan - 43.8% employed (Sunni muslim majority)
India - 62.85% employed (Hindu majority)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

It's the same in Africa, where all three countries below border each other:

Africa:
Somalia - 38.02% employed (Sunni muslim majority)
Ethiopia - 64.44% employed (Christian majority)
Kenya - 77.06% employed (Christian majority)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It's also the same in Europe with these countries that border each other:

Europe:
Turkey - 48.11% employed (Sunni muslim majority)
Bulgaria - 70.63% employed (Christian majority)
Greece - 72.52% employed (Christian majority)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The majority of muslim immigrants have less than 50% employment.
The exceptions seem to be among Shia muslims which have high levels of employment.
Immigrants from Iran seem to be doing really well with 76.09% employment and Iraqi immigrants have 77.71% employment.

There seems to a similar situation all over Europe where unemployment is much, much higher amongst people from muslim countries, especially Sunni muslim countries.

This can't be due to racism as people from Kenya are the same color as people from Somalia so does anyone know why muslim unemployment is so high, especially amongst Sunni muslims?

[edit on 14-1-2006 by AceOfBase]

sry i dont understand can you plz discribe what you sed im not very
good in english

[edit on 14-1-2006 by BaCk2thereallife]

Originally posted by BaCk2thereallife
sry i dont understand can you plz discribe what you sed im not very
good in english

I'm asking why Sunni muslims have higher unemployment than non-muslims or Shia muslims.

Originally posted by AceOfBase
This can't be due to racism as people from Kenya are the same color as people from Somalia so does anyone know why muslim unemployment is so high, especially amongst Sunni muslims?

[edit on 14-1-2006 by AceOfBase]

I imagine that it could be education the problem with the rates of unemployment, perhaps their skills are not in demand.

Also I will like to know if these rates are in the last three years or if they have been like that for a long time.

Racism could also play a role in the rates.

Not really racism, education is the KEY factor here. Shia Muslims don't go to Madrassas, they got to normal schools which teach mathematics, Science, and how to correctly read and write. In Saudi Arabia (where 50% of the population or more is unemployed, a highly Sunni country) kids spend their whole day learning the Quran in school instead of the above mentioned subjects. They then go to a workforce demanding high skills and don't get employed. That's why the Saudis IMPORT huge amounts of labour instead of just employing everybody. It's nuts. Makes no sense in my mind. Of course that's the extreme, I can't really figure out why a country full of qualified engineers and other highly technical professionals such as Pakistan can't get it's citizens employed. That's probably racism

It looks like this isn't just in Europe.
Even in India the muslims have a lower rate of participation in the work force than Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains.

censusindia.net (PDF)



I think they measure workforce participation a little differently than the British.

[edit on 31-1-2006 by AceOfBase]

Very enlightening post, it confirms stuff I have wondered about as well.

I suspect employers are less willing to hire Muslims because of the need to take breaks to pray, having Fridays off, and having to wear religious garb.

In some places, such as factories, flowing clothes etc can get caught on machines.

Also the percieved integration of the muslims into the predominantly christian or Hindu (India) workplaces may also be a factor.

Originally posted by Netchicken
Also the percieved integration of the muslims into the predominantly christian or Hindu (India) workplaces may also be a factor.

I'm looking for information that I had found earlier that showed unemployment among non-muslims was higher even in muslim countries.

In the mean time, I found this link that shows the same trend of unemployment in Australia:

brisinst.org.au/

The Muslim population comprised one per cent and 1.5 per cent of the total Australian population in 1996 and 2001 respectively. In 1996, the Muslim unemployment level was 25 per cent compared to the nine per cent of the national total (Australian Bureau of Statistics).

Could it be that their just plain Lazy?

Perhaps they think the world owes them and any employer that hires them is Blessed by Allah. I read about a soldier painting a school in Iraq as the male locals stood by 50 feet away....jeering at him.

Maximu§

Originally posted by LA_Maximus
Could it be that their just plain Lazy?

I'm not sure what it is but during the Paris riots in October and november people kept blaming the high unemployment on French racism. I don't think that's the case because in almost every country the unemployment rate is highest amongst the muslims.

actaully in saudia arabia the native muslims have gotten so rich off of oil they expect jobs as CEOs and executives and dont have any incentive for higher education. Not to metion they now feel the jobs taken by foreign immigrants are beneath them (even doctors and engineers) and avoid them

It has to do with thier culture, and value system.

Then if they get to bored they get easily picked up my extremist groups to take what they deserve

Originally posted by LA_Maximus
Could it be that their just plain Lazy?

Perhaps they think the world owes them and any employer that hires them is Blessed by Allah. I read about a soldier painting a school in Iraq as the male locals stood by 50 feet away....jeering at him.

Maximu§

it could just be that you have a skewed view of the muslim world and rely on rumors about war.

they're most likely victims of circumstance, either due to a lacking educational system and/or the regions they live in.

Originally posted by AceOfBase

Originally posted by LA_Maximus
Could it be that their just plain Lazy?

I'm not sure what it is but during the Paris riots in October and november people kept blaming the high unemployment on French racism. I don't think that's the case because in almost every country the unemployment rate is highest amongst the muslims.

france has a history of racism against the north african immigrants, they have a special racial slur for them, which translates to butter, and the majority of them face daily discrimination.

From the same


Looks like sunni bangladeshis are doing better than czechs and chinese.

Also, why noting 'sunni', where is the data comparing sunni to shia then? Do iranians do better than saudis?


also:

news.bbc.co.uk...
Mauritius 75.2
Egypt 55.98 vs. Japan 47.06

Bangladesh 42.75 (sunni) Iraq 37.98 (shia dominated)

Iran 31.71 vs Somalia 12.17

This can't be due to racism as people from Kenya are the same color as people from Somalia

Ok, so its due to bigotry directed at muslims.

[edit on 1-2-2006 by Nygdan]

Originally posted by Nygdan

Looks like sunni bangladeshis are doing better than czechs and chinese.

--snip--

Also, why noting 'sunni', where is the data comparing sunni to shia then? Do iranians do better than saudis?

--snip--

Ok, so its due to bigotry directed at muslims.

Saudi Arabia isn't on that chart but the Iranians (76.09%) and Iraqis (77.71%) do much better than people from Somalia (38.02%), Bangladesh (40.01%), Pakistan (43.87%), Turkey (48.11%) and Egypt (70.33%).

The Egyptian employment numbers are kind of high.
I'm not sure what percentage of the population of Egypt is Sunni.
The only numbers I see say the muslims are 94% of the population and most of the muslims there are Sunni.

I don't think the disparity in employment numbers is due to bigotry against muslims because Shia muslims generally have high employment.

BTW, those numbers you posted were for new immigrants instead of established immigrants who have been in the country for more than 15 years.
This is important because immigrants who claim amnesty are left out of the workforce until their cases are heard and that can take years. The most accurate figures to look at are the established immigrants.


[edit on 2-2-2006 by AceOfBase]

Egyptians claim (somewhat proudly ) that the muslims are 100% Sunni.

Shia's were generally made up close-knit rich families of the elite. I'm sure the effect of that extends even till today. Thus, it would be understandable that they'd be able to get better educations and better jobs.

I don't think madrassahs are the problem. The religious schools are usually timed after normal school times. The lessons usually take place in a local mosque. I've been to some pretty backward areas of Pakistan (to pick an example from the list), and almost ALL boys (and a surprisingly large number of girls) attend school uptil the age of 12-13. Boys also attend the madressah upto about this age. Usually after this, the child is taken out (of both the school and madressah) to start working (or they get out on their own). In some cases the child continues studies.
If you are talking about less backward areas, the madressahs have an even weaker effect, and schools a stronger. I don't think I've ever seen any adults taking lessons in a madressah.

[edit on 2-2-2006 by babloyi]

I found a report that goes fairly extensively into the muslim unemployment issue in Britain.
It really seems to hit the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis the hardest.
A very large percentage of muslims, especially muslim women, are not in the work force.

I'll say again that I don't think it's discrimination that's leading to this high unemployment because the unemployment level of Sikhs is less than half of that of muslims and Sikhs stand out in crowd more than muslims do.


ASPIRATIONS AND REALITY: BRITISH MUSLIMS AND THE LABOUR MARKET (PDF)

Originally posted by AceOfBase
The lowest levels of employment all seem to be amongst immigrants from Sunni muslim countries while persons from neighboring countries, with the same skin color just different religions, seem to have much greater levels of employment.
[edit on 14-1-2006 by AceOfBase]

I wonder if Language is a problem. It used to be that French was the language that you learned to communicate internationally in Europe. Now English has taken over that role.

I suspect that for whatever reasons the Arab-speaking countries chose not to participate in activities with Europe, and hence did not teach French to their citizens, and later on did not teach English.

I think it's fairly recently that the Arab-speaking countries started emphasizing the importance of learning English, but I could be mistaken. This would put them behind in "the game."

If you look at Western Europe and Northern African countries, most of them have a high level of English competency. It might be helpful to see how high of an English competency the Arab-speaking countries possess.

Ralph, language may play a part amongst the new immigrants but a lot of the younger Pakistanis and Bangladeshis were raised in Britain and they should be able to speak the language. Howevever even the young muslim population has much higher levels of unemployment than their Christian and Hindu counterparts.

From the PDF above your post:

• Of young people aged 16-24, Muslims have the highest unemployment rate of all faith groups. 17.5 per cent of Muslims in this age category are unemployed, as compared to 7.9 per cent of Christians and 7.4 per cent of Hindus