A staggering 35 percent of Lebanon’s youth are currently unemployed, the Lebanese industry minister told a crowd at a seminar in Beirut Friday.

“[These are great levels of unemployment,” Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hasan told the audience that was gathered at the Gefinor Hotel in Clemeanceau where the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) hosted the “Seminar on Innovation in Lebanon’s Industrial Sector.” The 35 percent unemployment among Lebanese youths confirms the World Bank’s concern that the recession, political impasse and presence of over 1.3 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon have exacerbated the economic problems in the country. [Link]