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Big home-grown companies
For the Middle East to drive employment and productivity, the region must increase its share of home-grown global companies. The top 10 per cent of the world’s largest employers command 80 per cent of total economic profit. They on average employ five times more people, spend double on research and development and extract up to 20 per cent more from expended capital.
2. Competitive talent
A major funding priority should be expanding education that readies young people for the realities of this century’s work. Greater access and public funding for early childhood education, which has an outsize impact on cognitive abilities later in life, as well as subsidizing learning credits to help re-skill existing workforces, are two of the recommended priorities.
3. Patents pending
The report recommends a leave of absence policy for government employees starting a new business, which would help both eliminate the risk of entrepreneurship and reduce dependence on the government to provide jobs in the region.
4. The other half
Closing the gender gap in the economy is an enormous source of unrealized economic potential globally. However, the Covid-19 pandemic is a dampening force.
5. Rebuild conflict zones
Conflict in the region has significantly depressed the population’s job opportunities.