By Josephat Inambao Sinvula
UNEMPLOYMENT has now become a threat to Namibia’s peace, stability and tranquillity with so many school dropouts increasing every year. On the one hand, persistent unemployment among the youth and women has also led to social evils such as the high rate of crime and HIV/AIDS. A number of youths involve themselves in house-breaking, armed robberies, car theft, stock theft and money laundering.
To add salt to the wound, teenage pregnancies and sex workers are also on the increase thereby contributing to the high rate of HIV/AIDS in Namibia.
Currently, the unemployment rate in Namibia has the propensity to fluctuate between 25% -27%.
A study conducted in 2000 indicates that “unemployment has been growing since the 1970s despite the fact that Namibia’s economy has only a small labour force of about half a million people. The study found that there were about 20 000 people unemployed in 1970 compared to 170 000 people in 1998. This indicates that unemployment in Namibia has increased from 7.7% in 1970 to 32% in 1998.”
In 1997, the economically active population in the country was estimated at 612 618. This was made up of 307 454 men and 305 165 women.
In the broad sense, this indicates that the unemployment rate was 34.5% for the whole country. It was high in women with 28.6%. This indicates clearly that Namibia’s unemployment is much made up of a “structural nature” characterized by the limited size of the domestic market, economic dualism and labour market segmentation, declining productivity in agriculture and weak performance manufacturing sector.
Despite the aforementioned, Namibia has put in place a number of policy measures and programmes to encourage local and foreign investment. Among the policy measures in place are:
• The Affirmative Employment Act No. 29 of 1998 whose goal is to enhance participation and integration of previous disadvantaged groups in the society in the labour market and to promote equal opportunity in employment. Now, many women are engaged in construction, agriculture and small business activities.
• The White Paper on Labour Based Works that would enable women to engage in the construction of roads in rural areas.
• National Employment Policies for Job Creation and protection of workers.
• The Public Service Act No. 13 of 1995 for the establishment, management and efficiency of the Public Service and regulation of employment; and,
• The Employment Compensation Act No. 30 as amended by Act 5 of 1995 for the establishment of Employee Compensation Accident Fund and Accident Pension Fund.
According to the 2001 census result, the Namibian workforce is dominated by the private and public service that employs 57% of all workers.
This is followed by Agriculture, Fishing with 25% and Manufacturing with 12.3%. Namibia lacks skilled employed people.
Among the workforce 12.5% have no formal education, 44% have full or partial primary education and less than 1.0% has post-secondary education.
Employment in Namibia goes also with skills both in the private and public sectors. This makes a number of people currently unemployed now requiring skills such as computer literacy, accounting and clerical works as most jobs require such attributes as prescribed requirements in the job market.
According to the 2001 census, the overall unemployment rate is 31% that is high for females with 35.9% for males with 26.8%.
It is very high among the youth – almost 40.4% for those aged 15-19 and 46.9% for those aged 20-24 years.
By the year 2015, the unemployment in Namibia will be reduced to 20% as the government is committed to:
Promote small and medium-scale enterprises;
Provide training in business development and management to both out-of–school and in-school men and women;
Invest in community-based technical institutions for school drop-outs to gain skills;
Provide incentives for self-employment and job creation; and,
To encourage investors to put up industries.