Shafaq News- Babil/ Baghdad 

Iraq's security forces shut the main highway linking Babil province to Baghdad after unemployed graduates gathered to demand government jobs, Shafaq News learned on Monday.

A local source reported that protesters had assembled near Hilla, the province’s main administrative city. Video footage also showed security forces stopping dozens of buses carrying graduates from Babil and other provinces from entering Baghdad to join the demonstrations.

The protests eventually spread to the capital, where long-unemployed graduates gathered in al-Alawi district to press for the same demands.

The Iraqi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs estimates that around one million Iraqis are registered as unemployed, while youth unemployment stands at about 32%. Nearly 40% of the workforce is employed by the public sector, where salaries account for almost half of the federal budget. A 2025 Ministry of Finance report placed public-sector wages at roughly 55 trillion Iraqi dinars out of 106.75 trillion dinars in government current spending, underscoring the state’s heavy fiscal reliance on public employment.

Read more: Iraq: 250K graduates annually amid 20% youth unemployment