Everyone has heard about the Lebanese expatriates who send money back home — a foundation of the country’s economy. But there is also a significant foreign workforce in Lebanon. Domestic workers from South Asia and laborers from Syria constitute at least 20 percent of Lebanon’s workforce. They fill gaps in Lebanon’s employment and (as a group) remit a significant amount of money to their home countries. “Foreigners here work at jobs that Lebanese won’t do,” says Abdallah Rouzzouk, spokesman for Lebanon’s labor ministry. “It’s the nature of this country.” According to figures from the Ministry of Labor, there are currently 93,000 registered foreign workers living in Lebanon. Of those, five percent are considered “highly skilled.” The ministry estimates there to be 300,000 foreign workers living in Lebanon. But most estimates put the total number of foreign workers in Lebanon much higher — at 500,000 to a million. Most are Syrians,
