Unemployment rate for African youths at 20%
AFRICA'S jobless rate is nearly twice that of the rest of the world despite several years of rapid economic growth, according to a United Nations report released on Tuesday.
GENEVA
AFRICA'S jobless rate is nearly twice that of the rest of the world despite several years of rapid economic growth, according to a United Nations report released on Tuesday.
The report found that Africans under the age of 25 have an unemployment rate of 20%. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) said African economies need to create 2 million more new jobs every year for their unemployment rate of 10.3% to fall to the global average of 6.3% by 2015, when the UN’s Millennium Development Goals on reducing poverty come due.
Africa’s economic output rose 5.4% in both 2005 and 2006, and is expected to increase another 5.9% this year, according to International Monetary Fund figures quoted by the ILO.
“In Africa, young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults,†it said in the “Decent Work Agenda in Africa†report, to be discussed at a gathering of political and economic officials this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The ILO called the pervasive youth unemployment “an economic and social waste and a socio-political risk†for the continent which remains the world’s poorest despite its vast energy, ore and mineral reserves.
The number of people worldwide living on less than $1 a day declined by a quarter between 1981 and 2001, but nearly doubled to 314 million in sub-Saharan Africa in the same period, partly as a result of the AIDS/HIV epidemic and a series of floods, droughts and civil wars that have gripped the region.
Agriculture accounts for two-thirds of employment in sub-Saharan Africa, and many farm workers have low and unstable incomes, the ILO said. The majority of African women are engaged in rural subsistence work, and nearly 50 million children aged 5 to 14 are thought to be active in the continent’s workforce.
The report recommended that African countries seek to foster more employment-heavy sectors of their economies.
“Little progress has been made in shifting the reliance of African economic growth away from agriculture and resource-extraction towards manufacturing and other more dynamic and knowledge-intensive activities in the service sector,†it said.
Kick-starting job creation would require steps to reduce the time, cost and complexity of registering a businesses and ensure that property rights and contracts are better-enforced, according to the report.
Other constraints to employment growth are bureaucratic obstacles to international trade, difficulties in accessing credit, especially for women, and erratic tax regimes for entrepreneurs.
Reuters
AFRICA'S jobless rate is nearly twice that of the rest of the world despite several years of rapid economic growth, according to a United Nations report released on Tuesday.
The report found that Africans under the age of 25 have an unemployment rate of 20%. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) said African economies need to create 2 million more new jobs every year for their unemployment rate of 10.3% to fall to the global average of 6.3% by 2015, when the UN’s Millennium Development Goals on reducing poverty come due.
Africa’s economic output rose 5.4% in both 2005 and 2006, and is expected to increase another 5.9% this year, according to International Monetary Fund figures quoted by the ILO.
“In Africa, young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults,†it said in the “Decent Work Agenda in Africa†report, to be discussed at a gathering of political and economic officials this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The ILO called the pervasive youth unemployment “an economic and social waste and a socio-political risk†for the continent which remains the world’s poorest despite its vast energy, ore and mineral reserves.
The number of people worldwide living on less than $1 a day declined by a quarter between 1981 and 2001, but nearly doubled to 314 million in sub-Saharan Africa in the same period, partly as a result of the AIDS/HIV epidemic and a series of floods, droughts and civil wars that have gripped the region.
Agriculture accounts for two-thirds of employment in sub-Saharan Africa, and many farm workers have low and unstable incomes, the ILO said. The majority of African women are engaged in rural subsistence work, and nearly 50 million children aged 5 to 14 are thought to be active in the continent’s workforce.
The report recommended that African countries seek to foster more employment-heavy sectors of their economies.
“Little progress has been made in shifting the reliance of African economic growth away from agriculture and resource-extraction towards manufacturing and other more dynamic and knowledge-intensive activities in the service sector,†it said.
Kick-starting job creation would require steps to reduce the time, cost and complexity of registering a businesses and ensure that property rights and contracts are better-enforced, according to the report.
Other constraints to employment growth are bureaucratic obstacles to international trade, difficulties in accessing credit, especially for women, and erratic tax regimes for entrepreneurs.
Reuters