The Minister of Industry and Trade, Yaroub Al-Qudah, released on Thursday an updated list of the jobs allowed to be practiced from home.

The list included 59 new professions, which were classified into four categories: intellectual jobs, handcrafts, food processing, and house services.

This comes following a new agreement with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), launched in collaboration with the Jordanian government this week.

The agreement aims at issuing licences for individuals wishing to start a home business or work from home. Two hundred and twenty licences have been issued since the launch.

Individuals are allowed to work from home as long as their work area does not exceed 15 percent of the total property's size, as well as balconies and outdoor areas are kept at bay.

Despite the fact that many home-based jobs are unorganized and unofficial, Al-Qudah said that this sector is an essential component of Jordan's economy, noting that around 12,000 employees are currently working from home under the unofficial private sector.

USAID said that home-based jobs contribute more than 10 million JOD directly and 44 million JOD indirectly.

Some of the jobs on the government's new list include fashion design, 3D animation, secretarial and printing jobs, news-writing, designing marketing materials, advertising and consulting, human resources, architecture, accounting, economic consultancy, economic feasibility studies, information technology, sales of office and sports equipment, management of scientific and intellectual programs, graphic design, promotional materials, human sciences, genetic research, sales and marketing on the Internet.

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition