Iraq still leans on government for jobs

Baghdad -- A vital part of Iraq's economy, private sector jobs not related to oil, has failed to make a comeback since the 2003 invasion, a government source said.

"For all the talk about the private sector taking off in Iraq, it didn't materialize," Haider al-Abbadi, a parliamentary economic committee member, told The New York Times.

"The private sector does not exist now, because there is no infrastructure." said Hasan al-Shammari, the head of the Fadhila Party in parliament.

With foreign investment slow and a market dominated by imports, the Iraqi government has filled the economic void, nearly doubling its payroll from 1.2 million to 2.3 million since 2005, the Times reported.

Government jobs may soon reach 35 percent of the workforce, 5 percentage points shy of a CIA estimate of how many worked for the government before the U.S.-led invasion, the Times reported.

The private sector has made gains recently. The government budgeted money in 2008 to help small business owners secure credit. It has also taken the initiative of privatizing some state-owned businesses and encouraged the formation of private banks.

Registrations for new business has risen by nearly 14 percent in 2008, the Times reported.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.