Impact of COVID-19 on the unemployment rate: Empirical application on eighteen MENA countries

Abstract

The consequences of the COVID-19 which devastated our planet was disastrous in terms of health and economic situation. The purpose of this article is to study the repercussions of the days of lockdown and the human capital index on the unemployment rate, in general and on young people in particular. The study covers eighteen countries in the MENA region. The econometric results have shown that the human capital index has a negative impact on the overall unemployment rate and on young people specifically. These results also indicated that strict confinement measures increase unemployment rate, unlike soft confinement ones.