By Kalima Nkonde
Story highlights
- Orphaned Youth with Mathematics university degree in education commits suicide after failing to get a teaching job for three years alleging corruption in teaching postings in his suicide note ( Zambian Observer, January,2019)
- I am always reminded of the Arab Spring when I address the issue of youth unemployment. We all know what happened to our friends in North Africa, where disgruntled unemployed youths can help to bring down Governments( Former Minister for Labour and Social Services, Fackson Shamenda,2015)
- 168,119 applications for the Zambia Army, Zambia Air force and Zambia National Service for an estimated 1,500 positions in 2016 ( Zambia Daily Mail,2016 )
- 57,601 applications for the Zambia Police Service 1,000 constable positions in 2018 ( Zambia daily Mail,2018)
- Youth unemployment is a ticking time bomb that now appears to be perilously close to exploding ( Former Minister of Finance, Alexander Chikwanda, 2017)
The motivation behind this article is twofold, first is the sad story i recently read about a young man of 31 years, who was a Mathematics University graduate and an orphan, who committed suicide after failing to get a job for over three years. The news made me breakdown as a parent with children of similar age and grand children as i wondered what sort of country we are leaving for them. I just had to write about the Youth unemployment problem. The deceased alleged that he failed to get a job as a teacher because the allocations of teaching jobs are laced with corruption. This case should be investigated by authorities so that teaching job allocations are based on merit and the young man’s death is not in vain.
The second motivation is the silence by Zambia’s political players about the issue of Youth unemployment. This is an issue i consider to be the number one problem that Zambia faces today. It is amazing that political parties on both sides of the aisle are oblivious to this problem and have not been talking about it and providing practical, innovative solutions and programmes to the problem. It gives any observer the impression that Zambian politicians are all motivated by getting into power and enjoy the gravy train themselves rather than by public service and solving societal problems thus the voter apathy especially among the Youth. There is an urgent need to keep youth unemployment front and centre of our country’s economic and social debates.
There is no doubt that Youth unemployment in Zambia does pose a serious threat to peace, security, political and economic stability, given that they make up a higher proportion of the Zambian population. The opportunity cost of not fighting youth unemployment is extremely high to the young people and the society as a whole. The consequences of youth unemployment include crime, alcohol and drug abuse, prostitution, violence including political violence, vandalisms, suicides, early marriages and of course a serious threat to the political stability of the country.
The former Minister for Labour and Social Security Mr. Fackson Shamenda recognized the risks inherent in not addressing Youth unemployment when addressing the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Africa regional workshop on youth empowerment in October 2015.
“I am always reminded of the Arab Spring when I address the issue of youth unemployment. We all know what happened to our friends in North Africa, where disgruntled unemployed youths can help to bring down Governments. This is why we must, as continent, seriously address the challenge of youth unemployment,” Mr Shamenda said.
When officiating at the Pensions and Insurance Authority (PIA) event, the Minister of Labour and Social Services, Joyce Nonde- Simukoko in late 2018 disclosed that Zambia’s unemployment rate is 41.2%. Earlier in 2018, the Oxford educated and respected academic, Dr. Sishuwa Sishuwa, estimated that Zambia’s unemployment rate was 60%. There are others who have estimated the unemployment at ridiculous rates of 15.35%. However, regardless of what the statistics are, what is not in dispute is that unemployment especially among the Youth is very high and the evidence on the ground does support this assertion.
In order to put the gravity of Youth unemployment in context, last year in 2018, the Zambia Police Service had received 57,601 applications for jobs advertised as part of their recruitment exercise for the 1,000 constable positions. In 2016, the Ministry of Defence advertised an estimated 1,500 positions and received an incredible 168,119 applications for the Zambia Army, Zambia Air force and Zambia National Service .In my generation, these jobs we neither seriously considered nor rushed for and were left for those with very poor education results.
Although private companies and other public institutions do not disclose the number of applicants for jobs that they advertise, they also must be overwhelmed with thousands of job applications. The question is what is the cause of all this high level of unemployment despite record foreign direct investment inflows in the past 27 years especially from the mines and the Chinese and record debt contraction by government especially on construction?
The causes of youth unemployment are well known and varied but it is important to highlight the major ones so that, when solutions are being sought, there is proper focus in order to ensure that proper solutions are devised having diagnosed the causes properly. It follows, therefore, that for the record, these are outlined. There are five major factors contributing to the high Youth unemployment in Zambia.
The first major cause of Youth unemployment in Zambia’s low economic growth rate which is insufficient to generate enough jobs. Inasmuch as there is some validity in this argument, there is some limit to the credence of this argument, in Zambia’s case. The Zambian experience has shown that even when the economy was growing at about 7%, enough jobs were not being created. The reason is that the growth in the economy was coming from “wrong sectors” and was based on the export of raw copper with little value addition and foreign financed infrastructure projects with very little local content in them including the supply chain.
In addition, a chunk of contribution to the economic growth rate is and was dominated by foreign investors with negligible local companies’ participation, resulting in most of the multiplier effects not flowing into the country but going outside country. For example, the construction industry which in most countries jumpstarts economies was foreign and Chinese driven with limited local multiplier effect. In other words, Zambia has been exporting millions of jobs instead of creating them at home. The current laissez- faire model to foreign investment does not generate enough jobs to absorb the Youths that are coming out of schools, colleges and Universities.
Zambia’s current education system is very poor and is churning out Youths who are unemployable. The standards of education in Zambia have gone down over the last 27 years and the proliferation of education institutions has coincided with the deterioration of education standards. This has resulted in the mismatch of skills between what the education system is producing and what the labour market wants. This is certainly a major contributor to Youth unemployment as jobs may be there but Zambians have the wrong skills and so foreigners with requisite skills are being employed.
The technological advances in the 21st Century have resulted in the mechanisation of most tasks in most sectors of the economy resulting in less jobs being done by human beings and machines have taken over. In the 21st Century, there is need to develop a new set of skills fit for the Knowledge and ICT economy which is unfolding. Zambian Youth simply do not have those skills.
The current population growth rate in Zambia is also rather high, resulting in the economy not being able to cope given the low economic growth rates. The higher population growth rates than economic growth rates means there is a continuous gap between the two rates which is resulting in the high unemployment levels that the country has been experiencing.
Finally and most importantly, there is the lack of priorities, interest and political will in tackling and implementing most of the job creation initiatives developed and lying idle in government offices. The absence of political will and willingness to take bold steps to address the problem is a major contributing factor to Youth unemployment. It is not a false accusation that the government and Opposition parties have over the years given lukewarm attention to job creation. Politicians promise youth jobs in their speeches during election campaigns without concrete programmes and plans on how they will do it and consequently nothing is put in practice after they are elected.
It is vitally important that Government realises that Jobs are created by the private sector and most of the skills and ideas for job creation reside outside government and so they should consider looking outside the government bureaucracy in order to solve Youth unemployment. The involvement of the private sector, cooperating partners, labour Unions and the civic society is imperative. There are Zambians out there including this writer with innovative and practical solutions for job creation in the short term, medium term and long term. The solutions are there begging to be seized.
It amazes me how we seem to be so short of people with foresight in leadership positions in Zambia across the political spectrum.; have our leaders and their advisors stopped thinking and are more focused on primitive accumulation of wealth and the thirst for acquisition of political power? There is a serious lack of application risk management strategies whereby issues are anticipated and mitigation measures put in place.
Whereas a good number of Zambians who are outside the political arena are able to foresee some of these problems, before they happen, our leaders and their advisors, only see them when they happen and react to the situations- fire fighting management! No wonder we are now obsessed with acquiring all manner of fire fighting equipment- including second hand ones- instead of putting in measures that prevent fires in the first place. In Zambia, one gets the impression we seem to run our private and country affairs based on a “Fire fighting management Model” or the “ Fikasova (things will sort themselves out) model.
There are so many examples where this writer and others had warned about certain economic issues that needed to be addressed by government in a timely manner but the advice was ignored until it was very late. The issues include the following : implementation of proper taxing of mines and addressing illicit financial flows, the danger of accelerated massive infrastructure projects which made them the poisoned well of the economy, the negative impact of excessive debt, the need to rein in excessive expenditure and to avoid big government, the need to finalize the IMF deal quickly in 2015/16 to support balance of payments and prevent kwacha depreciation, the need to solve the Chinese conundrum by negotiating better deals to create jobs at the same time control the influx of low skilled Chinese immigrants with little value addition to the economy who end up depriving Zambians business opportunities. The list goes on and on.
In the light of the advice given in the past by this columnist’s articles and others having proved to be true, one hopes that the problem of Youth unemployment highlighted in this article is attended to immediately by both the Opposition, who should consider themselves as governments in waiting and should be outlining clear policies and positions as part of checks and balances on this issue, and the ruling PF party, before the ticking time bomb explodes.
The writer is a Chartered Accountant by profession, a Private Sector Development expert and an Entrepreneur. He is an independent, non- partisan finance and economic commentator/analyst and a Patriot.
Well articulated Mr. Chartered Accountant. It is up to the authorities of governance and other Government stakeholders to cease this opportunity and work on the points so well raised to tackle this ugly face of youth unemployment.
Lungu & PF are a failed experiment, period!
A govt that buys 2 missile-proof private jets at $400-million when it’s youths are destitute & go to bed on empty stomachs.
Unemployment in Zambia can only be solved with government, academia and private sectors working as a whole. Let academia come up with research projects that would help youth unemployment that government and private sector can help finance.
Also change school curricula to encourage entrepreneurship and skills such as plumbing and electrician. The problem with Zambian youths is that everyone wants an office job and free things. It’s not going to happen.
Arab spring was the worst thing that ever happened to North Africa and Parts of the Middle East. Look at Egypt, Libya and Syria. Their young men and women are languishing in European countries where no one wants them. White nationalism and anti immigration is at an all time high because of the “invasion” of Arabs into Europe. This problem of mass immigration was not an issue until the so called Arab Spring sprung!
Some dude called Edgar, the one who said had no vision for the country promised one million jobs in 5years and the gullible believed him. Things will actually get worse because PF are clueless and depend on international factors like the Chinese economy which unfortunately is also slowing down
Ba Obatala Edgar alimyochela ba madamu??? The hate….you must be on BP medication….
Funny thing is some of your so called youths cant see the its Edgar Lungu’s failure to provide them jobs. They cant see the link between their suffering and the quality of president they have. Very sad for them.
-They gave youths Black Mountain in Kitwe.
– Understand PF bought buses for its youths, was it Mushimba who has parked them?
– What happened to Miles Sampa’s yellow taxis. His plan was to empower youths with a taxi.
Oooh so you have to be PF first….
My brother Kalima Nkonde as always delivering the best analysis, always from a politically neutral yet very objective view point. Able to raise the issues our very, very dull opposition keep failing to see.
You have to be a very stupid opposition not to raise the very obvious issues facing the youth but for sure they the opposition have failed to even raise this matter.
What ticking time bomb? Stop your alarmist nonsense. When you have children and dont plan for their future what do you want govt to do? You drink away your paychecks and don’t put away college funds or life insurance busy eating pizza at the Mall. Fuseke!
Kalima Konde, thanks for putting it into context, figures alone usually ignore the humanity impact of the situation. Most Zambians, not just the youth are wallowing in abject poverty and are committing “suicide” in various ways like drug abusing, forced marriages and child labour, alcohol abusing, spiritualism, prostitution and other crimes from the very young age. The scale is quite alarming under the current economical hardships. For greed dictators, they see an opportunity to manipulate people and have their way. A wise leader knows that to safeguard one’s riches, make sure your followers are comfortable otherwise they will revolt.
Then you have lungu buying a lauxuary jet for his travells while his wife chatters a jet for 25 on a 2 week shopping trip while many have no jobs and some don’t get paid ……
Spaka you can make better president than your current boss that keeps losing
I think in his private capacity as a businessman , HH has provided more jobs to Zambians than and of lungu inicetives as president …..
We have politicians who think today’s employment is still based on physical power, hence escalation of primitive naked violence and vices that never promote productivity. Human resources planning in countries that are growing their economies is a major undertaking of their governments in conjunction & collaboration with all stakeholders in the value chain, including education systems content. It is common in this country to have a Minister responsible for education fighting stakeholders in the country’s education system and people are just watching, even encouraging wrong-doing as long as the doer is our supporter.
Just write a book man.
Your article is too long to read.
I know u are a tall man but try to wear shoes of a short man please!
Your reading culture is very bad mate! Read the first few paragraphs and come back to more another time.
The collective profile of your cabinet speaks volumes. These are failures in business and academics , at best Drunkards. They have no success tagged to their names and yet you expect them to perform wonders on the national platform. It is the voters themselves to blame they voted for theses failures without regard to national problems at hand.
Exactly! Voters are to blame for the mess the country is in currently. Chivotevote ndiye problem we have in this country.
The Colonialist Education System was well crafted to create more slaves! Even Unemployment is the by-product of Western Education up to tertiary level! Haven’t you wondered that we have WORK everywhere but everyone is looking for work? Most people retire into Agriculture irrespective of what colonial profession they embraced! Agriculture is the backbone of every Industry! The Zim economy was a well organized value chain from farms to industry! If you want to defeat unemployment, increase funding towards Agriculture and ZNS and absorb the hordes of the unemployed into ZNS! The Chinese are beating us because they understand the value of having a well-funded and functional National Service program! National service teaches other useful skills like construction which can make an average…
National service teaches other useful skills like construction, Carpentry, Artisan, etc which would make most youths self employed after graduating or retiring from national service! It’s not the job of GRZ to create employment! The job of GRZ is to create an enabling environment for the National Service and the Private Sector!
Just re-introduce national service and get all the unemployed youth on board and get them busy instead of them just drinking beer and wasting their lives! The best investment any government can make is Human Resource Development! See we are now exporting English teachers to Madagascar!
In a country well governed,poverty is something to be ashamed of.In a country badly governed you get lots of poor street vendors and Kanyama youths protesting.
Why did the young man have to take his life? Me I stayed for 4 years without employment. So I know exactly how frustrating it is to stay without a job for so long.Something always comes up some day. The tricky part is never to give up.
We are all different my dear. Your strength are not my strength and your weaknesses are not my weaknesses, every man has a breaking point. This is very sad because it is not the first, there was a young lady who committed suicide because she was not selected to university for the third time despite her having excellent results. Every pain even if it looks the same is different all i can say is we need to select people on merit and not which political party, tribe or class one belongs to …. this story is very painful.
The government are only caring their pockets & their relatives not pipo who votered 4 them its sad.
this is a wake up call indeed though this 31 year old orphan story is something else. how can one be an orphan at 31, he was supposed to start his own family at that age. while waiting to be posted he would have started doing something else than just depending on the Government to provide him with employment. Maths teachers are the most sort after in almost all the private schools including private schools in dundumwezi.
Politicians are hypocrites.
Youth unemployment is as the result of increase in retirement age from 55 to 65 years, imagine the number of would be retirees who are still holding on to those jobs which are supposed to be occupied by the youth.
Knowing there are few industries in the nation the government went ahead and changed retirement age, this is currently affecting the youth who are off loaded from tertiary institutions, look at the latest number of unemployed qualified teachers barely last year the figure was 27,000 but after last years graduates who finished month end Dec’18 the number increased to 40,000, this translates to 13,000 fresh graduates each year.
If the government continues to employee 2000 teachers per year the unemployed teachers will continue to increase by 11,000 annually.
This is sad indeed…
This is an African problem not just Zambia. It needs sober heads to correct and not political posturing. Our populations grew fast in the last 2 decades and the concept of urbanization without industrialization has made it worse. To me its a colonial legacy problem
My dear brothers and sisters let us not just blame the government. There is always one thing you and I can do because we the catalyst of the change we need so let’s do our part.
We are paying taxes.
But the problem surely does not lie with the increase in retirement age from 55 to 65. The reality is that there is an imbalance in vacancies created by people retiring and the huge numbers of “qualified youth” at the other end. What is needed is to grow the economy to absorb these numbers. We are not building enough schools to take on new teacher
The government are blame because are just employing their relatives.
Whom to blame if you elucidate like that?
How sir…if the government has failed the country everybody is complaining even those who work in the govenment.This government they just consider their pockets & their relatives only thats the problem sir.
Do these political parties have an agenda for youths? Youths are just used as tools of violence and mayhem. It is a pity that,as the author has said, a time bomb is being created. the earlier the government realizes this the better. if these youths are given guns,this nation will be on fire. They are living a hard way of life. Political parties have no plans for the youths in their manifestoes. The only party that hard plans for youths was UNIP. It had a good and comprehensive model for youth agenda
Send them to ZNS production camps and produce their own food instead of loitering the streets
Even the whole concept of ‘youth’ could b problm which cannot b solved exclusively. life involves inheritance and at best be accumulative. 50% or 80% youth unemployment is nothing if we still have hordes of 50, 70 year olds languishing in villages and only specialist at churning out offspring. it makes it a whole human devlopment issue
How can you not have high unemployment when you have no law discouraging employment of foreigners like others do. There was a report about Zambia having the highest paying jobs which are filled by foreigners. The government for the most part awards contracts to the Chinese further alienating locals. The government also doesn’t employ based on merit like what’s happening ion university selection
Very good and interesting article.
I would like to personally speak to Mr. Nkonde the initiator of the discussion as I feel I can contribute in some way to self employment of individuals and acquisition of knowledge, skills and appropriate attitude regardless of ones’ academic level. It will be appreciated if he can contact me through my e-mail address that I have indicated below.