Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat—Lebanese authorities are considering a
number of measures to regulate the employment of Syrian refugees in Lebanon on
Thursday, in an attempt to address the strain caused by more than 1 million
Syrians currently in Lebanon on the country’s economy.
Announcing the measures, economy minister Alain Hakim warned of an
“economic and social catastrophe” that the presence of so many refugees in a
country of just over 4 million people could cause. In May he said Lebanon’s unemployment
rate had reached 20 percent, and that this was largely because of cheap Syrian
labor.
