http://businessdayonline.com/2014/09/job-creation-versus-value-creation-dissecting-the-myth-and-reassessing-the-facts/
The scope, breadth and depth of
African Economic reforms put in place by the government to reinvent its
economy are alarming in recent economic history. A focus is the strong
empirical evidence of how the development of public sector aimed at
creating jobs had yielded poor results and undermined the growth of
African economy. Unfortunately, job creation has been the major economic
objective of all aspiring politicians but is not often met. Kenyan
President, Uhuru Kenyatta promised to create a million jobs every year,
Nigerian government, more than 460,000 jobs by 2018, President Robert
Mugabe(Zimbabwe) over 2million jobs by 2018, President Sata(Zambia),
says 436,363 jobs had been created by his administration between October
2011 and July this year. But of what essence is Job creation with
little or no economic importance? Sadly, citizens wait for government to
create jobs for them and use this as a yardstick for measuring
governmental success and to vote during election.
The governments often use the
Labour-Intensive technique to paint a rosy picture of its administration
which increases its numerical achievement for campaign and neglect
wealth creation- the meaningful reason for creating Jobs. Gilbert Didier
Edoa, the MINEPAT Secretary General of Cameroon, confirmed that the
labour-based approach used in constructing roads, schools and hospitals
has helped to create a lot of employment for the administration, but at
this point, it is important to draw the government’s attention to what
such jobs can do and never do.
Job directly created by government only
increases the quantitative and not the qualitative value needed for
wealth creation. It is very easy to count the numbers of jobs created
and neglect the essence of creating such jobs. Works are meant to create
economic value and increase income flow in the economy, and not to give
numerical strength for campaigns, and to showcase achievements. When
government decides to go into business or create employment, they are
very fast in counting the thousands of Jobs created, neglecting the fact
that these works are relatively unproductive, characterised by low
wages, inefficiency, and about 80% are temporary low-skilled Jobs.
The Algeria National Statistics
Office(ONS), for instance, revealed that the Algerian government claimed
it had slashed unemployment from 30% in 2000 to 9.8% in 2013, and also
boasted of 3.5M jobs between 1999 and 2008. Algerians do not only have
little faith in these figures but have also protested its credibility.
Just recently, dozens of young men and women stood-up against these
policies. Each and everyone have a story to tell about the absurdity of
the system, where job titles never match the positions offered.
Economics, Law, Medicine, Engineering and other graduates end up
securing temporary low-skilled Jobs paid between 10,000 and 15,000
dinars per month(i.e. $125 to $200), leaving about 900,000 pre-emplois
(temporary Jobs) in hope for permanent jobs.
Unfortunately, not only the government
got it wrong here; citizens’ protest also called for the wrong
intervention by requesting government to give out permanent jobs.
Governmental policies should encourage innovations, human talents,
entrepreneurship, individual participation in market and enabling
environment for business operations. Public policies aimed at correcting
economic recession and reducing unemployment has only been a bad
justification for increase in borrowing, government spending, taxation,
aids and corruption.
Pursuing a carrier in Economics, I
realized that Academic curriculum has placed government to be the savior
of the economy and has identified Job creation as the primary role of
government. A good start is to adjust academic scheme and clear the air
that Job creation is not the role of government. Entrepreneurship should
be emphasized as the means to stimulate the creativity and innovation
necessary to create a better economy. Graduates should not wait for
government to create Jobs for them but convert their knowledge into
intellectual productive ventures. A focus of growing labour intensive
industries would mean much less growth would be needed to achieve much
high level of employment.
Finally, growth and development as a peculiar objective of a society can only be realistic when citizens are apostolic to their innovative ingenious life under conducive mechanisms for sustainable development.
wao! U av said it all. More greese bro. I luv dis
ReplyDeleteNice one. Keep it up!
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