Reverend Jan Scholt

The concern with the employment problem in Africa is based on the complete erosion of the belief that economic growth and welfare are positively related and, therefore, that the maximisation of growth is also the maximisation of welfare.  

Whatever constituted the basis of this belief, the realities of growth in Africa indicate we have had rapid growth rates, the objectives of enhancing higher levels of economic welfare–however measured – were not being realised.  

This lack of achievement applies whether the basis of measurement in terms of increased incomes for the vast majority, increased levels of living or increased amenities for all.  

At the same time and closely-related to relatively decreased welfare and the issue of decreased access to opportunity and hence increased unemployment.  

Thus, despite the high growth rates in the fields of investment and industrial output, the growth of employment in urban and rural areas has far lagged behind growth in manpower and has become a critical problem.

It is a well-documented fact that 20-25% of the total labour force is unemployed or under-employed in developed countries.  

It is also recognised that on average more than 50% of the total unemployed belong to the younger age groups.  

This data exposes the problem of youth unemployment in dimensions that development planners have ignored. They have tended to see youth as a potential (future) labour force, an army of dependants.  

Furthermore, predictions indicate that the situation will not improve unless special efforts are made to solve unemployment among the young.

But this is not as straightforward as it sounds.  

A number of factors contribute to the problem: population has increased more rapidly than total wage employment; growth in industrial and manufacturing output has not resulted in proportionate growth and employment opportunities; rural-urban migration has led to the exodus of rural youth to urban centres-a situation, which contributes largely to heavy urban unemployment; the education system has generally failed to meet manpower requirements; a range of socio-cultural factors have inculcated inappropriate values in terms of aspirations and expectations of job-seeking youth.

All these factors serve to illustrate that youth unemployment cannot be considered in isolation but must be tackled within the overall context of economic and social development.  

The point is further emphasised by looking at the young population most likely to experience unemployment – the millions of rural youth who have never had the opportunity to be economically productive, many of whom subsequently become urban migrants; the large number of school leavers and graduates who have been victims of an education, which has proved irrelevant to the needs of society, and have first-hand experience of the so-called “mismatch between educational qualification and job requirements”, and the populations of young women and girls who face various kinds of discrimination in employment.

The young unemployed are not a uniform group, but they do share a common problem. They are all deprived of the chance to participate in the development process.  

Clearly taking all these factors into account employment problems of young people require both short and long-term action, like intensifying family planning programmes; creating employment in various sectors of the economy, particularly by encouraging investment in labour-intensive sectors; establishment of effective national employment services, including vocational guidance; educational policies to guarantee an education more suitable for job requirements, as well as integrated rural development schemes.

It is generally agreed that policies such as these will lead to the creation of additional employment opportunities in the modern sector, in the services sector and in the rural/agricultural sector.

An examination of the problem of youth unemployment under particular circumstances provides further insights.  

For instance, unemployment amongst young people (46.1%) in Namibia is especially serious and is getting worse.  

The unemployment rate in Namibia averaged 21% from 1991 to 2021, reaching an all-time high of 24.5% in 1997 and a record low of 16.8% in 2012. 

But by the end of 2022, it has jumped back to 22%, according to Trading Economics global macro modules and analysts’ expectations.  

In the medium term, the Namibian unemployment rate is projected to trend around 23% in 2023 and 22.5% in 2024, according to their econometric models. Therefore, these young job-seekers, it appears, are primarily those with considerable education.  

They are moving to city areas, and they are dependants and first-time job-seekers – not house-owners, but the family’s sole wage earners. In other words, the problem of unemployment amongst young people in Namibia is entirely the problem of “basic needs”.  

It affects those young people who move to the cities, looking for work and fail to find it, rather than older people who are living and working at subsistence wages in the country.

There is some evidence to suggest that because of particular local circumstances, young people might be choosier about work in the city than in other parts of the country. 

For example, sugar is the most important industry. In addition, sugar provides work through cutting and heading sugar cane on the large estates. But young people are not interested. It might be argued that this is because there is no future in this field. But why did they go when there were jobs for them at home? 

“I like money”, they say “and I like what money can buy in the capital city”.  

What can be done? Many would like to see changes in education systems that, generate the wrong values and attitudes towards different types of work a “divorce” between work and school and more emphasis on vocational courses in schools.  

Others see the problem as being how to persuade young people to remain in country areas, instead of moving to cities and adding to the number of unemployed, others think the first priority is a massive raising of wage levels in the country areas.

But more and more are coming to see land reforms as the answer. Suppose I work on a plantation for you for 41 years and at the end of that period I still have my little board and single house on your plantation which you can ask me to leave.  

Here is a young boy who has gone to school; his father has been in the sugar industry for 40 years and has nothing to show for it.  How can this encourage him to work in sugar?  Within Namibia as a whole, the actual rate of unemployment is perhaps surprisingly, high and this leads to the conclusion that remedies to the employment problems of young people need to be viewed in the wider context of the reduction of poverty and inequality. 

Only through local, regional and national cooperation will the jobs be created and the inequalities ironed out-just as land reform measures seem an essential pre-requisite of eliminating inequalities within countries.  

It may be worthwhile to give serious consideration to ways of distributing incomes equitably without so total a reliance on employment. This would mean that given a national income, the incomes of persons who cannot get employment or who cannot take employment because they are too old or too ill, should be assured by other means.

In these days of concern about employment; it will take a lot of persuasion to get across such a revolutionary idea. But one thing everyone in Namibia seems agree about – the problem of unemployment amongst young people calls for some very new initiatives.

*Reverend Jan. A. Scholtz is the former Chairperson of //Kharas regional council and former !Nami#nus Constituency Regional councillor and is a holder of Diploma in Theology, B-Theo (SA), a Diploma in Youth Work and Development from the University of Zambia (UNZA), Diploma in Education III (KOK) BA (HED) from UNISA.