Decent salaries and stability are the hallmarks of a job in the Iraqi civil service, an institution much sought after by young graduates even as it starves the private sector and hampers the economy.

The patronage systems that feed the public sector in the oil-rich but war-torn nation are so ingrained that even the outgoing Treasury Secretary is desperate to ever reduce them to a minimum.

It’s a refrain that fresh graduates sing every year on the streets of the southern city of Nassiriyah.

Among them is Maitham Mohammed Redha, 32. Public sector jobs are “our legitimate right,” he says, adding that he personally campaigned for jobs with the provincial governor because he had no “wasta” or an inside connection.

Its situation is mirrored across Iraq, a country of 42 million people where four out of ten young people are unemployed and where the state is by far the largest employer.

Leaning on oil production, which accounts for 90 percent of government revenues, young Iraqis look to public sector jobs as a haven from the political winds and uncertainty that plague businesses.

Such is the lure that the private sector is being robbed of bright young talent, as the brightest tend to opt for a largely unproductive easy ride in government service.

“When graduates start working in the private sector, they see it as a temporary job until they find an opportunity in the public sector,” said Maha Kattaa, country coordinator for Iraq at the International Labor Organization.

“The private sector feels it cannot compete with the advantages that the public sector offers,” she added.

Mohammed al-Obeidi, who has worked in a ministry for almost two decades, admits that “the salaries are good”.

“Some departments have good social benefits” and the possibility of retiring at 60 – or even as early as 55 – offers early retirees the opportunity to work in the private sector alongside their pension.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi has repeatedly stressed the need to streamline the public sector.

He noted last summer that “past governments … have inflated public sector jobs in a vain populism that has drained the Iraqi economy.”

Between 2004 – the year after a US-led invasion toppled longtime dictator Saddam Hussein – and 2019, the number of public sector jobs quadrupled, he said.

Public sector wage bills alone account for two-thirds of the state budget, he said, while Kattaa estimated the government employs nearly 40 percent of Iraq’s working-age population.

Such numbers are “among the highest … in the world,” she told the AFP news agency.

Kadhemi has recognized the urgency of reforms, but also that he does not have a “free hand” to implement them.

His survival as head of government always depended on the country’s main Shia groups negotiating patronage opportunities.

In the public sector and even in private companies, recruitment is often driven by the allocation of tribal and political favors.

Suitability or formal qualifications therefore often count for little.

Even the country’s finance minister says he has given up in desperation.

“Almost everything conspires to thwart real change and (instead) conspires to … perpetuate rotten practices,” Ali Allawi lamented in a letter read to the cabinet when he resigned in August.

Allawi blames the “cancer” of corruption, claiming that the state has not been able “to break free from the control of political parties and outside interest groups”.

According to Kattaa, companies need to improve working conditions by aligning private sector benefits and wages.

One bright spot is that last year’s oil price boom has boosted national production – the IMF predicts Iraq’s economy will grow 10 percent this year.

Entrepreneurs want to benefit from this, including Maitham Saad, 41.

Three years ago he founded a company that sells dates from southern Iraq to international markets.

It now employs about 30 people, although it is difficult to recruit, especially young people.

“As soon as they’re employed in the private sector and their boss is decent, they’re happy,” he says.

Unlike young people in the public service“Can negotiate their salary,” he says, and is cautiously optimistic about the future.