More than 18 months since the end of Libya‘s civil war, the most attractive job for many of the young is still to join a militia. In fact, just under a tenth of Libya‘s labor force may be working as gunmen.
Libya‘s government coffers are rapidly filling with cash as oil exports return to near pre-war levels, powering a 100 percent increase in GDP in 2012, according to a report this month by the International Monetary Fund.
But the economy of this North African oil giant remains in disarray. Unemployment, officially at 15 percent, is estimated by some as high as 50 percent. The private sector, decimated under ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi, still barely functions. Reconstruction investment is largely on hold, and the weak central government is funneling much of its oil wealth into public handouts to quiet discontent, as Gadhafi often did. Other money is lost down the drain of corruption.
And still other funds end up fueling the growth of militias.
The state pays many militias, relying on them to serve as security forces since the police and military remain a shambles. The regular salary has drawn a flood of young Libyans.
Militias first rose up as “brigades” during the eight-month civil war against Gadhafi, and at the time their fighters likely numbered in the thousands. Now an estimated 200,000 people are registered by the government on the rolls of militias, according to the commanders in two of the biggest militias, Hafiz al-Agouri, of Libya Shield, and Ismail al-Salabi, of the Rafallah Sahati brigade.
That would mean more than 8 percent of the country’s entire work force are in militias. The most recent World Bank estimate, from 2010, put Libya‘s labor force at 2.3 million people.
A Libyan businessman and an owner of a private construction company that has government contracts for rebuilding infrastructure in the eastern region bemoaned the lure of militia work among his own staff.
“My very skillful welder left because he got a job in a brigade that would not only give him triple the salary but he could work four days and take a week off,” Nasser Ahdash told The Associated Press. He said he is unable to carry out the reconstruction work because the price of his contracts doesn’t cover the rising costs of equipment, material and labor.