Unemployment: Youth hit hard

Lunyungu · 2013-01-26T20:45:59+00:00

By Aisia Rweyemamu 26th January 2013 Labour and Employment minister, Gaudentia Kabaka All is not well with Tanzanian youth as statistics show the group is intensely affected by rising unemployment. Government statistics released this week indicate that the countrys unemployment rate stood at 11.7 per cent in 2012 from 10.7 percent in 2011. Labour and Employment minister Gaudentia Kabaka told The Guardian in an interview that the number was rising because many youths completing courses in colleges overflow in town looking for jobs. The minister elaborated that most of the unemployed consist of youths from the age of 17 who are often seeking for their first job in life. Global Employment Trends for 2012 show that 74.8 million youth aged 15-24 were unemployed in 2011, rising by around four million since 2007. Globally, young people are nearly three times as likely as adults to be unemployed, on the basis of an annual report on global employment by the International Labour Organization (ILO) released to the media on Thursday this week. According to the minister, an update on youth unemployment is expected as census data is sifted, with preliminary figures showing that the countrys population rose from 34 million in 2002 to around 45million at present, while the figure at the compilation of the August 2012 census was 44.9 million. The new statistics will help the government to determine the size of the problem of lack of jobs, she stated. She admitted that unemployment in the country is a challenge which needs collective efforts from various stakeholders so as to tame it. Ms Kabaka told this paper that the ministry through the Tanzania Employment Agency established in 2008 has managed to help more than 2500 youth to obtain jobs in various institutions outside the country. About 2000 youths of different professions have found work in Oman, Denmark, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the rest obtained decent jobs in various places locally. The agency has helped a lot to connect job seekers and employers but the problems remains far too large, the minister underlined. Since it was established it has already helped to connect about 9000 job seekers with employers, and in the coming week the agency shall enter a contract with Qatar to help other youths to be employed. Qatar told us that they need professionals from different fields like chefs, engineers, nurses and some other profession, she said. The agency was working with the countrys embassies in those countries so as to obtain job openings where available, and provide facilitation for contact and travel, she said. There is need to include skills in our education system to enable those graduating from school or college to go and create a job rather than wait to be employed if the waiting becomes tough. Many youths believe that a job is the only way that one can put up gainful activity, such that one finds many energetic young people in the street complaining for unemployment. The ILO says that the world faces the urgent challenge of creating 600 million productive jobs over the next decade to maintain social cohesion, on the basis of the annual report on global employment. The global youth unemployment rate, at 12.7 per cent, remains a full percentage point above the pre-crisis level, it said, noting that an additional three million unemployed were likely to have been generated at the end of last year. That would raise the unemployed to 206 million by 2016, it said, elaborating that as global growth rates fell below 2 per cent on average due to slack growth in advanced countries, unemployment was figured to be standing at 204 million late last year. Dr Haji Semboja, a researcher at the University of Dar es Salaam said in a paper on Youth Employment in East Africa from an integrated labor market perspective that the three EA countries (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania) have common premises of youth unemployment solutions. EAC partner states have more or less similar national long-term development frameworks or visions, he said, recommending that EA countries should develop an integrated national vision, policy and plan of action for youth employment. The latest unemployment rates in East African countries he said were are Tanzania s 11.7, Kenya 40 percent, Rwanda 30 percent, Burundi 35 percent and Uganda is 4.6 percent. The countries which ranked in the top ten in unemployment rates were Zimbabwe 95 percent, Naura 90 percent, Liberia 87 percent, Burkina Faso 77 percent, Cocos 60 percent, Turkmenistan 60 percent, Djibouti 59 percent, Namibia 51.2 percent, Senegal 48 percent and Napel 46 percent. SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

Thread starter Lunyungu
Start date Jan 26, 2013

Lunyungu

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Jan 26, 2013

SHERRIF ARPAIO

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Unemployment: Youth hit hard

Lunyungu

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