"This decision was made due to the great need of health institutions in the Kurdistan Region for resident medical services," Barzani’s office said in a statement.
The order covers graduates from medical universities across the Kurdistan Region for 2024, according to the statement.
The graduates will be employed on the KRG health ministry's payroll, and their salaries and financial entitlements will be paid from the Kurdistan Region's domestic revenues.
Medical graduates had repeatedly held protests in the past, calling for job opportunities from the government.
They must complete a two-year internship involving clinical rotations in general hospitals and emergency departments before becoming eligible for promotion. However, the lack of employment for the class of 2024 had created a bottleneck, preventing resident doctors from advancing due to the absence of replacements.
The KRG has halted employment across all sectors for over a decade, except for occasional employment in critical sectors such as education and health, due to a financial crisis that began during the war against the Islamic State (ISIS) and budgetary issues that have not yet been fully resolved between Erbil and Baghdad despite numerous agreements.
The suspension of Kurdish oil exports through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline in 2023 further exacerbated the problem. The halt came after a Paris-based arbitration court ruled in favor of Baghdad against Ankara, saying the latter had violated a 1973 pipeline agreement by allowing Erbil to begin exporting oil independently in 2014.
As such, the KRG has failed to pay its civil servants on time and in full due to the financial crisis. The public employees have yet to receive their June salaries.
Civil servants have borne the brunt of austerity measures. Their monthly salaries were frequently delayed or reduced. The salaries are now being paid by Baghdad.
