This AP Article describes how few iraqis are actually finding reconstruction-related jobs, seven months after the initial call for emergency funding expressly for the purpose of preventing instability and widespread poverty.
Of course virtually all of this money went to major American firms like Halliburton and Bechtel, which are supposedly subcontracting to other firms from Britain and Europe, and in some cases Iraqi firms.
I have to note that the AP article states that the job situation is 25,000 people employed by reconstruction programs out of a total Iraqi workforce of 7 million, and characterizes this as "less than 1 percent." It states later that the "hope" is to double this number within two months. The math seemed a bit overgenerous. With my trusty calculator I discovered that "less than 1 percent" actually translates to .36 percent. Even if the job numbers do get doubled, the total will still be less than 1 percent: .72 percent.
The good news is that most of those 25K jobs have been achieved in the past month, so there is hope.
