35% of Namibian youth jobless

A UN agency report has found that Namibia is among the countries with the worst job prospects for young people and that those who do find jobs earn poor salaries.
The World Employment Social Outlook on Youth report was published by the International Labour Organisation.
The report found that 35% of Namibians between the ages of 15 and 24 are unable to find work. The report also found that 15% of employed youth experience “extreme working poverty”.
According to the report, trends show that sub-Saharan African youth unemployment rates are expected to continue on a downward trajectory, which began in 2012, reaching 10.9% this year and slightly decreasing next year.
Employment Equity Commissioner Vilbard Usiku told Namibian Sun said although he had not seen the report, it is factually correct.
“It’s a pity that it is the case. We are talking about those young people who do not have employable skills to offer and we do not have manufacturing industries where they access manual labour, or rather industries that could provide them with jobs that can be done by people who do not necessarily have skills,” he said.
“Namibia is not an industrialised country, therefore the few industries that we have can only take a few people who do not have the training and necessarily skills.”
Usiku said graduates are also struggling to find jobs, especially if they have qualifications that the labour market does not need.
“It is not only Namibia. Perhaps the difference is that our percentages quite high, but it’s a worldwide problem,” he said.
Working poverty is also a cause for concern. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest percentage of youth working poverty in the world, at 70%.
“Although this rate has declined by some ten percent since 1991, it is important to note that the number of poor working youth has increased by as much as 80 percent since that date. This is coupled with the fact that young workers in the region have one of the highest probabilities of living in poverty in comparison to adults,” the report states.
It shows that in developing countries there is growing evidence over the past couple of decades of a shift in the age distribution of poverty, with youth taking the place of the elderly as the group at greatest risk of living in poverty.
According to the report, even where the at-risk-of-poverty rates are relatively low, such as Denmark and Sweden, young workers can be as much as three times more likely to be at risk of poverty than their adult counterparts.
Youth are also over-represented in temporary and part-time employment.


Drivers of inequality


According to the International Labour Organisation, participation rates of youth in the labour market worldwide – that is, the share of youth that are either employed or unemployed – continue to follow a long-term downward trend, from 53.3% in 2000 to 45.8% in 2016.
“Of course, the 2016 global average sits amid a wide spectrum of regional labour force participation rates, ranging from 30.4% in the Arab States to 54.2% in sub-Saharan Africa.
“The reality is that young people’s decision to participate or not in the labour market is a complex issue, which depends on a number of economic and social factors, each potentially shaping their decisions to pursue an educational pathway or participate in the labour market.
“In general, young people face a trade-off between, on the one hand, investing in their education, thereby increasing their likelihood of finding quality employment in the future and, on the other hand, entering the labour market immediately after the end of the compulsory education period, so contributing to the accumulation of household income but possibly reducing their earnings potential and future chances of career advancement,” the report reads.
GORDON JOSEPH