Tunisia's state-owned carrier to cut 1,000 jobs

Tunisia’s airline Tunisair has announced it will lay off 1000 of its employees as part of reform plans.

The reforms were planned months ago together with major unions in the country, in a bid to reduce costs and improve competitiveness.

This comes under the new governance of Prime Minister Yousseff Chahed, who has promised his new government will improve the country’s weak economy and create jobs.

TunisAir- Tunisia's state-owned carrier to lay off 1,000 employees (12% workforce) as part of reform to reduce costs pic.twitter.com/Jo6f3egRsO

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The country’s economic outlook for 2016 conducted by the World Bank indicates that the rate of unemployment is still high at 15.4 percent particularly for women, university graduates and the youth. The announcement was made by the country’s Transport Minister, Anis Guedira who also said 400 employees have already chosen to leave voluntarily and are expected to receive their compensation.

The working force at the at the state-owned carrier is currently at 8,200 full-time workers and in total the job cuts will reach 1000.