Addressing Youth Employment Challenges
Added on 2019-09-26
12 Pages3239 Words172 Views
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Introduction In the recent years, youth employment has gained recognition all over the world. A number of international forums, commitments are made to achieve the full and productive employment levels and creating decent work opportunities for the young generation.For the Egyptian Government, youth employment is a major challenge as the problems related toemployment are affecting both young women and young men in the country.As per the figures recorded in the year 2014, the youth unemployment rate was observed around 29% (approximate), and youth suffering from poverty denoted 50%. The total number of people who were leaving the country had shown an increase of 17% for the year 2014 as compared to the year 2013. The youth leaving the country assumed unemployment as the main reason behind their migration.Egypt, at present, is in a stage of its demographic transition and this stage is popularly called as "youth bulge." This means a period in which the graph of the young population shows a significant growth in comparison to the other age groups (Kashyout, 2015). This is a special framework that operates in Egypt at present, where some people have been successful in getting jobs and are able to maintain their family. They enjoy financial as well as personal independence. While, on the other hand there are some people who suffer from unemployment. Thus, they are forced to migrate under the pressures of unemployment.The economic situationIn the year 2008, the whole world was hit by a serious financial and economic crisis and the effects of that crisis extended to various countries. It has affected mostly the young generation
Youth Employment Program 1who are generally targeted first during any crisis and are kicked out first from the jobs and are not able to find a job after a crisis (Assaad, 2014). This is the same situation that is prevailing in Egypt. Due to this crisis, many young people in Egypt are migrating from the country to other places where they can find better jobs.Since 2008, Egypt has been facing serious economic challenges along with an unstable political condition which has resulted in increased stagnation, poverty and unemployment in the country. Out of those who are affected by unemployment, minimum 90% are the people who are below 30 years of age. In the recent years a paradox has been observed as the young, educated people in Egypt are unemployed, whereas, on the other hand, the Egyptian employers are finding it difficult to hire duly qualified workers. This shows a failure in the education and training as it is not able to get young people having the required skills as demanded by the labor market. As per the report issued by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS)for 2015, on youth population in Egypt, it is observed that out of the total population in Egypt, 23.6% is being represented by the Egyptian youth and which is around 20.7million in number. Out of those, 26.3% of the youth is suffering from issues of unemployment, and around 51.2% are suffering from the issues of poverty (Barsoum, 2014). The Youth which is observed to be very close to the poverty line is around 27.8%, and the ones which are observed under the poverty line are represented by 24.1%.
Youth Employment Program 2Out of the total labor force in Egypt, 52% is being represented by the Young generation where 72.3% is represented by the young males and 33% by the young females.Analysis of approaches taken by the government for youth employmentBy observing the current situation of unemployment, it has been recommended that best solution to overcome the problem is the creation of job opportunities for young people to enter the labor force. The other solutions can include, providing incentives to the employers on reserving jobs for the young generation.There is a need to develop partnerships between the government and the private sector. Integrated strategies need to be adopted to address the mismatch that is evident between the skills possessed by young people and the skills required by the market. The government has been developing the 'Building Young Futures' program in order to develop the skills of young people at work as it has been observed that people generally possess the theoretical knowledge about the work which they have chosen as their career but when they are put to the actual working, they lack the practical skills required for the work. The program shares an idea of focusing on the development of the work skills in youth starting from a very earlier stage (15-17 years) that is much before they enter the labor market.The government has also developed a national training plan in order to increase employment andsimultaneously to reduce unemployment in the country. The unemployment problems in the country which is currently faced by over three million individuals which constitute 13.1% of the total labor force in the country are supposed to be eliminated through this plan (Krause, 2016).
Youth Employment Program 3The aim with which this plan was initiated was to provide jobs to over 2 million people. It was observed by the end of year 2014 that jobs were generated for almost 170,000 people out of which approximately 70% jobs were filled.In May, Adel Labib, who was the Minister of Local Development, had announced of his approval to over 1,000 projects in just one month which were an initiative towards the community, human and local development. These projects were given the title-“Your Project”and involved an investment of around EGP 34m.On the World Youth Day, in the year 2014, CAPMAS report was released stating that the young employed Egyptians between the age group of 18 and 29 consisted of 51.1% young males while remaining 48.9% was represented by young females. Gradually, out of all the countries belonging to the Secretary-General’s Youth Employment Network (YEN), Egypt was consideredto be a lead country (Assaad, 2016). YEN was a partnership done between the United Nations, the ILO, and the World Bank.As the leading country of YEN, the Government of Egypt prepared a National Action Plan on youth employment (NAP) in support with the ILO. The process through which NAP has come into existence has been supported strongly by the Ministry of Manpower and Migration (MoMM). Since Egypt was a part of Yen, so as an initiative of Yen, it started the NAP in February 2006. Under the scheme of NAP, various meetings were held concerning the problems of youth unemployment under the leadership of the Ministry of Manpower and Migration of Egypt.
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