The study, the second quarterly round of the survey for the year, involved 10,000 families. Unemployment among males stood at 13.4 per cent, while among females it was 28.4 per cent, according to the study's findings. The figures were 12.3 and 19.6 per cent, respectively, in the first quarter.

According to Fathi Nsour, director of the Household Survey Directorate at DoS, the rise of unemployment rates in the summer is a familiar phenomenon. One of the reasons, he said, is that college students start looking for holiday jobs in early summer and take up some of the job opportunities that normally go for regular members of the country's workforce.

However, the unemployment rate was higher this May compared to the same month in previous years. In May 2003, for example, the same survey estimated unemployment at 13.7 per cent. Nsour said the rise came as no surprise taking into consideration the increasing number of foreign workers in the country.

After the March 2003 US-led invasion on Iraq, an influx of Iraqis crossed the border into Jordan and took jobs in sectors shunned by the local workforce, such as construction.

The Ministry of Labour last month estimated that there are 320,000 legal foreign workers in the country.

The DoS survey found that the majority of the unemployed fell under the 15-29 age category, constituting 74.7 per cent of the total number. Of these, 1.3 per cent were illiterate, while more than half of them did not finish high school.

Among the unemployed females, 77.4 per cent were holders of a diploma and higher degrees.

Experts have attributed part of the unemployment problem to the fact that community colleges diverted from their original goal of producing the technicians required to work in vocations that are now dominated by foreign labour.

By the end of May, unemployment was more evident in the rural areas, estimated at 19 .2 per cent, compared to 15.1 per cent in urban areas of the country, according to the DoS survey.

According to the study, 23.5 per cent of the unemployed had been without a job for a year, while 45.1 per cent had been looking for a job for six months and less.