Analyzing Youth Unemployment in Bhutan: A Literature Review

This literature review examines the primary causes of youth unemployment in Bhutan, highlighting issues such as child labor, gender disparities, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It discusses the lack of foreign direct investment, cultural barriers, and the need for improvements in the education system and job creation strategies. The review identifies research gaps, including the need for more insights into government strategies and the experiences of unemployed citizens. It concludes that addressing these issues through measures like restricting child labor, enhancing education, and promoting entrepreneurship is crucial for improving Bhutan's employment rate and economic development. The paper used secondary data from internet sources to review the topic.

The main cause of
youth unemployment
in Bhutan

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Literature review..............................................................................................................................3
Research Gap..............................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6

Introduction
Unemployment is the biggest issue in developing countries now days. Unemployment is
the situations where youth of nation are eligible to do jobs but they are unable to find a suitable
job for them self which will match their skills and talents. Due to this issue the employment rate
of a nation decreases which shows the poor condition of the economy of that country. In recent
time Bhutan is facing many problems ans unemployment is one of them which they are trying to
resolve as soon as possible (Tenzin, 2019). Bhutan government is required to make some strong
strategies which will further help them to increase their employment rate for their economical
development. This problem can be removed by taking some measures like introducing new job
roles for the youth, focusing on the education of the youth, teaching practical knowledge to
students and many more. Societal point of views, their beliefs and their culture are also playing a
big factors of unemployment in Bhutan. Bhutan is facing more unemployment from female side.
The following report file covers literature review on the topic of main cause of youth
unemployment in Bhutan and their research gaps.
Main Body
Literature review
According to the Perspective of Tashi, (2015), the main reason of unemployment in
Bhutan is because of their involvement of child labour. In Bhutan poor children are sent for
labour work of the construction site or sent to other countries for the same purpose of labour
earning and due to this they are unable to gain a good education for them. Hence, their
government are required to focus on the education of their poor citizens.
Another noticeable data of Bhutan is seen that their female unemployment rate is more
than their male unemployment rate. There are many female in Bhutan who are eligible to work
but they are unable to find a good job for them due to their family concerns or due to rejection
from companies, their low confidence and many other reasons. This report also covers the
suggested solution of this kind of issues. This report suggest that there will be programmes in the
Schools and colleges related to teaching how students can prepare them self in interviews and
how they can enhance their personal and professional skills to make their career (Tangtipongkul

and Wangmo, 2018). Promotion of these types of courses will help to gain the confidence in
women to work independently.
This report shows the comparison of employment rate in 2013 with the employment rate
of 2014 which states that there is the improvement in the employment rate of Bhutan but the rate
of increasing employment is slower as expected or as required by the country. They are
developing in this field but at a very slow rate which should be improved otherwise they have to
suffer.
According to the point of view of Tenzin (2019), child labour is the reason of their
youth’s unemployment but beside this there are many other factors and one of them is their
foreign direct investment, very few foreign companies are interested to invest in Bhutan or start
their manufacturing in Bhutan which is helpful to generate many jobs for the youth. Another
issue is believes and cultures and the few families in Bhutan restrict their female members to
pursue their job after their graduation. Their government is unable to generate new jobs for them
and they are unable to make new strategies to grow their economy from this side of employment.
According to the prospective of BDR Bhandari (2017), there should b e the
improvement in the education system of Bhutan. There are many negative impacts of
unemployment on the youth of Bhutan like increase in the stress level of youth, bad quality of
life, lacking behind to develop their living standards and many more. This study also indicates
that unemployment is another reason of increase in crimes in the country. Unemployed citizens
engage them self in unlawful activities which is not good for the country. Hence, it is essential to
focus at the beginning growth age of children (Bhandari, 2018). It is essential in Bhutan to focus
the education of their children and allow them scholarships so that they will go abroad and study
well. Another good suggestion in that the government must organise an event in which some
brilliant ideas of students related to job and their entrepreneur idea must be kept in front for
government and in case government finds the idea useful for their country then they must
provide financial help to those students who has given brilliant ideas for the development of their
country’s employment rate.
According to the perspective of Wangchuk Drukpa (2016), this study reveals that
unemployment in Bhutan is getting solved during 2014- 2018 but during Covid- 19 pandemic
their whole planning for development of employment rate fails. Bhutan is the country whose
many jobs get eliminated due to the pandemic and they again stuck in the situation of increase in

their unemployment rate. Their youth are asking for new opportunities in both private sector as
well as in public sector. This paper also states the hazardous impact of recent time
unemployment condition on future generation of Bhutan. Few solutions are also given by the
author. Bhutan has many handicrafts shops where they sale many things which is made up of
hands like flower pots, cloths, hat and many others. Hence, a online business of such business
will help to generate more employment. Their government must make some strategies which will
help in making links between their small entrepreneurs to large scale entrepreneurs so that small
scaled entrepreneurs will learn how to expand their business through online and selling the
products to other countries have greater opportunities in Bhutan. It is also considered that
technological factors also impacted strong upon unemployment in Bhutan. Bhutan is a small
scaled country and recently they are under developing stage. The condition of technology is not
good in Bhutan (Pelzom and Katel, 2018). Hence, they are required to introduce more
technologies which are useful in their businesses. Bhutan follows a monarchy system where a
King rule the country and made the rules and policies according to him which he think beneficial
for the Bhutan. Hence, this is also the reason because a single person or a group of few
individuals can not be specialist in every field. Their government is required to analyse how
other countries are developing their youth development from employment point of view.
Research Gap
From the above mentioned literature review it is found that there are few research gaps.
Research gap is the area of study or the question of study which is not answered by the
researches. In simple words research gap helps in knowing the areas of study which is lacking
behind to answer research questions or the new ideas which is not studied in the reviewed
context (Wangmo, 2018). Some of the research gaps of the reviewed studies are mentioned
below-
 The above mentioned studies are unable to answer the question that what are the main
strategies or plans of government toward developing of the employment rate of Bhutan.
Most of the studies only mentioned the causes and impact of unemployment in Bhutan
but very few studies states the solution of this issues from government side that what
their government is doing to solve this issue.

 Another research gap of the studies reviewed above is that they are unable to show the
experience of unemployed citizens of their country. It is good to study the condition of
unemployed citizens if data on this topic will directly collected by them instead of
collecting data from secondary researches like internet and other sources. The condition
of unemployment in any country will be explained exactly by an unemployed only
(Dendup and Acharja, 2017). Hence, there should be some studies of unemployment in
Bhutan which will cover the experience of real struggler.
 Most of the studies on unemployment in Bhutan mainly focus on one factor that is
increase in labour market and child labour. This is the biggest problem of unemployment
but there are some another reasons also like lack of FDI, lack of good HR policies by
government and many others, the studies did not focus on these factors which should also
be considered in research papers.
Conclusion
From the above information it is concluded that the Bhutan is facing major issue in
developing new jobs for their youth. The pass out students of colleges and universities ask for
new opportunities in their country but due to lack of good reputed job they are unable to find job
for them and hence they have to face the situation of unemployment. For conducting the above
research, secondary data is used where internet sources are used to review the papers on the
topic. It is further concluded that the main reason for the increase I rate of unemployment I
Bhutan is because of labour market. Labour market in Bhutan include children also, there is no
restriction on child labours due to which mane children drop out their schooling and starts
helping their parents in their work at construction sites and many others. Another issue of the
problem is that their government which is in the form of monarchy is unable to establish a good
strategies or plans for their country to develop their employment rate which further help them to
develop their their economical growth. Their are no or very few foreign investment. The export
of Bhutan only cover the countries of their neighbourhood. It is recommended that this issues can
be resolved by taking some corrective measures. They can restrict the youth to enter their labour
market if their age is below 18. They must make sure that their most of the youth must complete
their schooling and gain higher education. Government must introduce some new jobs and
accepts the ideas of the students for their entrepreneurship. Here, government must help the

students from financial point of view if their ideas for the business in brilliant for the
development of country.

References
Books and Journals
Tenzin, U., 2019. The Nexus Among Economic Growth, Inflation and Unemployment in
Bhutan. South Asia Economic Journal. 20(1). pp.94-105.
Tangtipongkul, K. and Wangmo, D., 2018. Determinants of Unemployment: Characteristics and
Policy Responses in Bhutan. Southeast Asian Journal of Economics, pp.27-48.
Pelzom, T. and Katel, O., 2018. Youth Perception of Agriculture and potential for employment
in the context of rural development in Bhutan. Development, Environment and
Foresight. 3(2). pp.92-106.
Bhandari, J.B., 2018. University graduates youth unemployment in Bhutan: Causes and
psychological impact of Unemployment (Unemployed University Graduate's
perspectives).
Dendup, T. and Acharja, I.L., 2017. Effect of individual factor on entrepreneurship intention
among undergraduate students in Bhutan. World Journal of Business and
Management. 3(2). pp.1-12.
Wangmo, S., 2018. The impact of government debt on the economic growth of Bhutan.