The Sunday Mail
Why are we not getting jobs?
A billion-dollar question many youths are asking. A fair question which the youths have every right to ask, I bet.
After all, Section 20 (1c) of the constitution says that the State must take reasonable measures to ensure that youths “are afforded opportunities for employment and other avenues to economic empowerment”. Over and above, the ruling party’s resounding victory in the watershed July 31 affair was thanks to the youths who constitute 66 percent of the motherland’s citizenry. Zanu-PF pledged, in its election manifesto, to create 2 265 million jobs. Since 83,5 percent of the unemployed persons are youths, according to the Income Consumption and Expenditure Survey conducted by Zimstats in 2012, the youths related well with this Zanu-PF gospel.
So much for Zanu-PF’s 2,2 million jobs, they now probably whinge!
Many of these young people have trained as accountants, agriculturists, economists, metalworkers, marketers, you name it. More continue to be churned out from the tertiary and vocational institutions in great quantum — not less than 70 000 perennially – and “dumped” into the job market’s deep end. All they are looking for is one job each to practise their trades in the formal sector. Sadly, the formal sector is shrinking and does not have an appetite to recruit.
In Government, recruitment has been frozen since 2012, leaving very few opportunities for graduates who have trained for government jobs to get employed.
In a recent research paper titled, “Youth Unemployment: Sadc’s Number 1 Public Enemy”, written by myself and a colleague, Daphne Jena, and published in Friedrich Ebert Stiftung’s journal, we argued that unemployed youths may turn to immoral and illegal ways of earning income and that youth unemployment is also a huge compelling factor for sex work.
It can also affect the youth’s future employability and income “due to the deterioration of their skills and the lack of experience they suffer while unemployed. As a result, most potential employers end up shunning them, believing that they will be unproductive”, we further proffered.
Against the above background, I would like to candidly give a heads-up to youths and share a few painful realities.
Many youths make the big mistake of thinking that the 2,2 million jobs are supposed to be nicely wrapped with an aluminium foil, placed in a silver platter and hand-delivered to them at their respective physical addresses.
Otherwise, the incumbent government has failed to fulfil its promise – period! they protest. How wrong they are!
I remember reading a letter which went viral in the cyber realm, written by one Lawrence Hoba, titled, “Application for one of the 2,2 million jobs”.
Addressed to Zanu-PF, Lawrene’s letter partly read, “With reference to your election manifesto, which excited even the MDC-T to splitting point and made me put a cross next to your name on the ballot paper, I hereby apply, publicly, for any one of the 2,2 million jobs you promised in Zim-Asset.”
With this kind of attitude, the youths will remain condemned to the gutter. The author was also reckless in his writing, by indicating that the jobs were promised in Zim-Asset, when as yet that was contained in the Zanu-PF election manifesto.
The initiatives that you make at personal level, under these rain clouds of indigenisation and empowerment, largely contribute to the creation of the envisaged 2,2 million jobs. That is why the same Zanu-PF manifesto says, “Indigenisation and people’s empowerment is particularly designed to create unprecedented employment opportunities over the next five years.”
When the rains of empowerment fall from the sky and find your field unprepared, then even a miracle won’t change your situation. This behaviour of thinking that the government is the devil and the youths are saints must stop as it won’t get us anywhere. The youths should be at the forefront of vigorously suggesting various “avenues to economic empowerment” that should be put in place by Government to allow them to start their own income-generating projects. This is where the 2,2 million jobs come from!
Reminds me of John F. Kennedy’s popular saying: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”, instead of singing the tired song “Dai hurumende yatipa mabasa”.
Those who are waiting for Government to courier jobs to them via DHL have a long wait to wait. But while they wait, there are certain things that just can’t wait — like food, rent, utilities, medical expenses, you name it.
The youths who can thrive in this economy are those who swallow their pride and try to fit into the economic situation, not to try and make the economic situation custom-fit into their circumstances.
The sooner you swallow your pride the better! Take Alec, my 25-year-old neighbour, for instance. Having graduated top of his class with an accounting degree three years ago, he never found a job.
He will, however, live to forever thank the little bird that whispered in his ears that he can make money out of the big garden.
Now he is growing organic vegetables and mushroom that he is supplying to the local supermarkets and community. Instead of looking for someone to employ him, he now is a proud employer of three. This is the time for the youths to come up with innovative and creative ideas and then go to Government demanding resources to create their own enterprises. Government would be too foolish to deny land, mining claims, vending sites, inter alia, from youths who have a concrete plan to turn around the fortunes of this economy. The lack of capital excuse is also intolerable as you can always start small in writing your own story, titled, “The humble beginnings of…” This is the age of empowerment.
The energy that the youths spend blaming the Government for problems whose solution they are part of should rather be spent in organising themselves and finding opportunities they can tap into to improve their livelihoods.
Some youths miss so many opportunities simply because of their ignorance. While many, for instance, were benefiting from the Kurera/Ukondla Youth Fund, others were busy manufacturing their own illusions that “ndezve Zanu”, and excluding themselves from the process — much, of course, to their detriment. A very few graduates know that the Government, in the 2015 National Budget, has set up a Youth Employment Creation Fund identifying quick-win projects focusing on agro-processing, and allocated a sum of US$500 000 as seed capital on a pilot basis.
The youths, by naturally being the majority in this country, also constitute the majority of consumers of goods and services. What is saddening to note is that we are at the forefront of buying imported products, at the expense of locally manufactured products.
Every single digit fall in capacity utilisation, sadly, translates to company closures and downsizing — with countless of jobs being shed resultantly.
The youths must therefore start a deliberate revolution of supporting local products, and wake up to the reality that supporting foreign products is supporting joblessness. The Buy Zimbabwe Campaign must therefore be a sin (non-tariff barrier) that we are all willing to forgive. It reminds me of Honourable Mudarikwa who contributed to the motion on Special Economic Zones in Parliament on January 27, and made a remarkable observation that: “The only thing we are not importing is oxygen”. But The Saturday Herald’s Nathaniel Manheru punctuated it better. In his instalment published on Valentine’s Day, Manheru said, “Today the national stomach growls and belches “airs” we cannot describe… How does the stomach of a landlocked people burp smells of the oceans? How does a savannah orifice fart the smells of deserts?”
It is high time the youths’ orifices proudly started to fart the smells of a land-linked country! The Government, in its relentless quest to continue to empower and facilitate the creation of jobs for the youths, has also spoken of freezing salaries and wages during the course of the year.
Take the example of the 30 percent reduction in mobile voice tariffs. The guy who was using recharge of $50 per month would now need just $35 to make the same amount of calls for the entire month, thereby saving $15.
The central bank has also explained that the achieved competitiveness would mean that businesses would not face closure due to lack of demand which would have shifted to imports and workers would not lose jobs.
This also creates opportunities for jobs creation. It is my strong belief that salary increases, to a large extent, do not benefit workers, as retailers would be compelled to raise the prices of goods and services proportionally. The presumed benefits of the 26 percent salary increase which was given to civil servants last year will actually be outstripped by those of the smart move of wage freeze. Wage increases in a high unemployment environment also widens the gap between the employed and unemployed and worsen the already high levels of inequality in the country.
Imagine how many jobs would have been created in Government if the 26 percent was used to recruit youths to fill vacant positions in Government!
Coming to the issue of the wage freeze, it is my humble view that it should be traded with lifting of jobs freeze in Government, of course recruiting only when surpluses are made. Our youths must wake up and be fully conscious of the New Economy that is unfolding right in front of them and try to be compatible with its dictates. There is no such thing as free lunch after all.
