Syrian Ministry of Social Affairs cancels the leaves granted to employees and orders them back to work.

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor in the new Syrian government has announced the cancellation of previously granted paid leaves to a number of employees, requiring them to return to their positions within the ministry through a new decision.

Details of the new decision

Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, Hind Kabawat, directed all departments under the ministry to prepare official notifications for the return of employees and submit them to the Directorate of Administrative Development, ensuring that those whose leaves were cut before this decision will continue in their current positions.

This decision comes after the previous caretaker government had granted thousands of public sector employees paid leaves for three months as part of measures to review their files and regulate employment situations, aiming to address administrative slack and phantom jobs.

Extensive campaign against "ghost employees"

A government campaign revealed the existence of thousands of registered employees without actual work, known as "ghost employees," who receive salaries without performing job duties. The transitional government is currently conducting a comprehensive evaluation of around 1.3 million public sector employees, according to previous reports by Reuters.

In this context, Deputy Minister of Local Administration, Dhaffer Al-Omar, confirmed that many employees lack academic qualifications, were not committed to official working hours, indicating that this phenomenon was one of the prominent aspects of administrative corruption during the previous era.

Reinstatement of dismissed employees in the electricity sector

In a related development, Minister of Electricity Engineer Omar Shaqrouq issued a decision to reinstate 18 dismissed employees from the Public Electricity Company in Al-Suwayda to their positions after an open sit-in protest by the company's workers against the dismissal decision.

Decision number (304) dated March 19, 2025, resolved the crisis and confirmed the employees' return to work.

Ongoing evaluation to regulate positions

Sources in the Ministry of Local Administration and Environment revealed that the ministry has around 65,000 employees across Syria, with 25,000 employees evaluated so far, retaining only competent individuals as part of the plan to eliminate non-functional positions.