job market, but the economy has not been able to absorb them. In 2017, the Syrian labor force was estimated to total about 3.767 million people. An estimated 67 percent worked in the services sector including government, 17 percent in agriculture, and 16 percent in industry in 2008. Government and public sector employees constitute about 30% of the total labor force and are paid very low salaries and wages. According to Syrian Government statistics, the unemployment rate in 2009 was 12.6%; however, more accurate independent sources place it closer to 20%. About 70 percent of Syria's workforce earns less than US$100 per month. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many more Syrians are seeking work over the border in Lebanon than official numbers indicate. In 2002 the Unemployment Commission (UC) was established, tasked with creating several hundred thousand jobs over a five-year period. As of June 2009 it was reported that some 700,000 households in Syria – about 3.5 million people – have no income. Government officials acknowledge that the economy is not growing at a pace sufficient to create enough new jobs annually to match population growth. The UN Development Program announced in 2005 that 30% of the Syrian population lives in poverty and 11.4% live below the subsistence level. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour is responsible. Opportunity Cost of Conflict A report by Strategic Foresight Group, an India-based think tank, calculated the opportunity cost of conflict for the Middle East for 1991–2010 at US$12 trillion in 2006 dollars. Syria's share in this was US$152 billion, more than four times the projected 2010 GDP of US$36 billion. The Syrian Center for Policy Research stated in March 2015 that, by then, nearly three million Syrians had lost their jobs because of the civil war, causing the loss of the primary source of income of more than 12 million people; unemployment levels "surged" from 14.9 percent in 2011 to 57.7 percent at the end of 2014. As a result, 4 in 5 Syrians were by then living in poverty, with 30 percent of the population living in "abject poverty" and frequently unable to meet basic household food needs. An estimate from 2014 estimated the population below the poverty threshold in Syria to be 82.5%. See also Banque de Syrie et du Liban List of companies of Syria Ministry of Economy and Trade (Syria) References Notes Works cited Syria country study. Library