How to solve Zim’s unemployment crisis
THOUSANDS of youths in Zimbabwe are currently unemployed or underemployed and this number increases every year for different reasons. Just like many other African countries, Zimbabwe faces a daunting task in terms of resolving issues of unemployment, underemployment, informality and decent work deficits, a survey conducted by International Labour Organisation back in 2016 revealed.
There is thus need to come up with solutions to these challenges.
Some of the solutions that may help to solve unemployment, according to Musawenkosi Mpofu, a writer for Future Africa Forum, are to support structures that promote entrepreneurship in schools and tertiary institutions. He suggested fostering the development of an entrepreneurial culture among the youth as well as facilitating self–employment.
This can be made possible by developing an entrepreneurship incubator in each college working with local successful business people and SMEs, he said.
Mpofu also suggested creating a conducive and enabling environment for investment through reduction in the cost of doing business in the country.
Another economist, said the most sustainable way to create employment for Zimbabwe would be to create conditions for a stable economy with business friendly policies for local and international investors.
“These conditions include a stable inflation, streamlined taxation model, guarantees to property rights and policy consistency,” said economist Victor Bhoroma.
Employment can only be created in a sustainable manner when businesses operate at optimal levels and reinvest their profits in the local economy, he said.
Bhoroma said a short term measure to create employment by the Government can look at increasing the portion of budget spend on infrastructure investment.
Investment in infrastructure has ripple effects on sectors of the economy in terms of spending and demand for support services, he said.
Another economist Persistence Gwanyanya said the only viable way of dealing with the unemployment challenge is through re-industrialisation.
“We need to climb the value chain ladder in industrialised economy as a permanent way of job creation for Zimbabwe,” said
Gwanyanya.
“Giving loans to the youth - is important and is happening with Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe giving micro finance to small and medium enterprises amounting to $500 million and at Treasury there is a venture capital fund to support industry especially youth and women,” said Mr Gwanyanya.
He said the structure of the auction itself creates opportunities for participants who would want to be supportive and to grow.
“We need more medium sized businesses and more small sized businesses, if we take a look at the auction system as it is currently, it is supportive of growth of small to medium enterprise to the extent that, everyone in the primary user category has got the equal opportunity to be allocated the maximum amount per week by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe,” said Gwanyanya.
“We need to diversify our economy through value chain approach, if we have more small businesses in the economy we employ more people,” said Gwanyanya
However, Gwanyanya said the reindustrialisation crisis is a long term chal
lenge which cannot be solved overnight, therefore, we need to double our efforts as Government to improve our perception or image.
A comprehensive national employment policy should be developed in consultation with relevant stakeholders, there is need for strong involvement of National Manpower Advisory Council (NAMACO) in employment policy and employment creation, writes National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations NANGO executive director, Dr Cephas Zinhumwe.
According to Sunungurai Chingarande and Macnoman Guduza, in a research paper, “there is need for an expansion of the existing system to offer indirect routes to skills acquisition which would cater for those who fail to meet minimum academic requirement but with the elegance to follow certain skilled professions.
“A co-ordinated labour market information system needs to be established to monitor labour market trends and facilitate the designing, planning and monitoring of policies and programs geared at employment generation.”
The boom of populace need to be checked in order to remedy the unemployment problem, family planning programme should be implemented extensively and effectively.
“Employers used to train entry level employees allowing them to gain experience and climb the career ladder, but today employers favour outside hires with ready to go experience.
“This change has hurt young job seekers it is best to reward employers who invest in on the job training with tax credits,” said Tom and Mary Norton.
Bhoroma added that challenges come from unresolved legacy issues such as land tenure, policy inconsistency, high levels of money supply growth, that is, high levels of inflation, stringent foreign exchange regulations, cumbersome taxation model, high cost of production locally.
These constraints affect business productivity and create unstable economic environment where long term investment planning becomes difficult and it also affects access to liquidity for production purposes, he said.