By Antonio Mwanza, is the PF Deputy Media Director
In 2015, President Edgar Lungu launched an ambitious National Youth Policy and Action Plan on Youth Empowerment and Employment targeting the creation of more than 500,000 jobs for the youth through the implementation of the national apprenticeship and internship schemes.
5 years down the line not only has the President achieved his goal but he has, in fact, surpassed his target.
Since we only deal with FACTS let me give you the breakdowns:
1. SYNOPSIS
a) The job of the Government is not necessarily to create jobs but more so to create an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive.
b) Government jobs, the world over are never enough. Why? Because Government jobs are LIMITED to the public sector or/and civil service. That’s all.
c) The more the Government employees the more burden it puts on the treasury, creating an economic imbalance. For instance, currently, Zambia is spending over 50% of its budget on salaries and emoluments leaving little money for us to invest in other socio-economic sectors to spur growth and raise people’s standards of living.
So to ensure sustainable growth and job creation, the key is to have a thriving private sector.
2. WHERE DO WE STAND:
According to the Labour Survey of 2019, the PF Government has created hundreds of thousands of jobs, both permanent and temporal ones.
Currently, the job figures are as follows:
¡) We have over 1.1 million Zambians informal employment
¡¡) Over 1.2 million Zambians in the informal sector and
¡¡¡) And over 900,000 employed in the domestic sector.
Currently, the Government is running over six major youth empowerment initiatives. These programmes are Youth Development fund, Women empowerment fund under Development Bank of Zambia, Skills and entrepreneurship project through the creation of industrial parks under African Development Bank, The $29million Zambia aquaculture enterprise development project under African development fund, Cassava Value Chain Programme under the Citizen Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC), Aquaculture Value Chain Initiative under CEEC.
Just last month Government dished out:
¡) 6 million dollars to youths for aquaculture
¡¡) K470 million for multi-sectoral youth empowerment projects
¡¡¡) K30 million for artists.
Over 3800 small and medium scale businesses have benefited through CEEC.
So when it comes to the 500,000 jobs, President Edgar Lungu has delivered on his promise.
In fact, he has gone beyond.
Statistics from the CEEC, Zambia Development Agency, Central Statistics Office as well as the Ministry are AVAILABLE for all to see.
Excellent facts which can be verified unlike the lies of HH which remain shrouded in secrecy. Why would a man sue a woman for 3 million to stop her talking if he is really innocent? Those are actions of a very desperate guilty man. I am in the process of formally recommending that a commission of inquiry is set up for privatisation. We cannot have thieves claiming to be self made billionaires and giving our kids misleading targets in life. Kz
Now I wait for my clone below to comment. I know it is ka tarino. Hahaha
No data presented here to prove 500,000 jobs have been created or even exceeded. We need more clarity my brother Antonio.
Farming is also employment. More than one million rural people are working in agriculture but they are ignored.
Mboza iwe
Antony you used to make sense with Nawakwi. This pf deliberately poarched you & placed you on that meaningless position to finish you. You can’t even tabulate basic statistics. And all that is here is like lies from an under 5. Lungu has failed miserably. His success is only his pockets & that those of his ministers & henchmen like Kaiser Zulu.
Imagine all those jobs NOTHING for Antonio Mwanza. Antonio is employed at PF secretariat hahaha… A former UNZASU leader still unemployed, he can’t even be given a job as press secretary at embassy in Mozambique??
What an idyot…
Excellent analysis comrade mwanza,our President is a working President and wants to see all smile..
black mountain ati jobs, he is a useless a$$hole of a wnna be president
If those facts are true, as Antonio mwanza AKA Zambian citizen writes , GRZ should have enough money remitted by way of income tax on paid employment to cover debt repayments…….but why are you failing to pay your debts if you have such a large tax paying working population ????
PF politburo please relieve Ed94R Lun9u of his duties and start interviewing; 1. V!ncent Mw4le, 2. Alex4nder Ch!teme 3. Br!an M4shimba, and Dav!s Ch4ma as possible replacements and when you are interviewing please make sure they have a vision for this country.
Data from ILO the same data at the Zambia statistics website
Unemployment rate
2016 – 7.37%
2017 – 12.6%
2018 – 11.4%
2919 – 13.2%
And I rest my case unless @KZ does not know the meaning of the symbol %
What do you people SMOKE? Don’t mook the surfering people of this great nation.
This is laughable. Is this really the best ba PF have to offer? To prove that those 500,000 have been met or suppassed, you have to make a comparison between figures at the time he made pledge and now! Not ifyo mulelanda iyo, twakana! Antonio, wasebana boi but waikuta!
As if he is addressing children( Kwati baiche ale eba). Sometimes keeping quiet is better than saying a lot of things with zero content or full of nonsense.
This Government managed to take this country more than a hundred steps backwards by getting us back into a debt trap and some people are worshipping someone! It is poor people like me to feel the pinch of repaying that debt. For them a K2m is nothing. What a shame! Anyway they are enjoying the loot together. We understand.
Are these numbers in human numbers or rats numbers? Who got employed?
This is a lie.
Tell us something new, you are not even trying.
PF must Go
The FDD guy not familiar with his scope of duty, writing about government issues instead of party issues. The two are totally different bwana.
Very shallow
Why are all dandala heads grouped in one party. Kamba that Lusaka province PF chap on ZNBC PF national television television yesterday , just to say we as a party the chap kept on saying we as the party. He does not understand the difference. And this arrival from FDD called Antonio should be the one to tell us about employment creation, my foot. Make no mistake, English is a very good measure of one’s aptitude
Zambia needs to re-introduce night school at both primary and secondary school level.The level of illiteracy among PF cadres is alarming.
the most useless article. People do become dull when the join PF indeed
You do not need a doctor of thesis to explain to the public that there is less money in the pockets of people. You promised more money in the pockets of people. You have broken the promise, how are people going to trust you.. Simple, PF lies.
This chickenfeed again!?
and yet the economy is in tatters. Dont lie to people. firstly the nurses lungu said would be employed are not employed up to now and secondly if jobs were created why is the economy in such a mess? these things go hand in hand.
Why don’t we compulsory send these PF caders having positions back to school, you can imagine in broad day light a minister saying the Zambian economy is doing well in contrast to all economic benchmarks. Atleast their President has been honest to say the economy is challenged.
comments reserved i personally like EDITH NAWAKWI reasoned thinking may be will complement her party position that includes Social, Economic & political justice. All these aims and objectives are specified in the Preamble of the Zambian constitutional ,with a fundamental purpose to achieve them by harmonizing the all other features stated in the constitution towards creation of employment to achieve society welfare and protection it should be the reasons why governments are put in power some peer review to ensure harmony with bill 10 or rights and
I think GRZ spokes person is better placed to give this info or better still Statistical office with details such as graphs industry wise. A cadre? NO.
How many jobs were there before 2015?
How many people have lost employment since 2015?
If we have created 500,000 jobs and gone $10 billion in debt it means that each job has cost $20,000 to the taxpayer.
Haha, what drugs does this dude smoke? The level of b00tlicking is unbelievable! He’s now counting even those guys selling cigarettes and vitumbuwas and samosas on the street to his job tally.
So both employment rates and unemployment rate are going up? Aren’t they supposed to be mutual mutually exclusive or reciprocal (i.e. one goes up and the other goes down)?
By the way isn’t i) and ii) the same: “informal employment” and “informal sector”… what’s difference?
Haha really laughable as Jay Jay Jay would say. God what did we do to have people with this level of low IQ in leadership roles?
• There could be Jobs created but a visit to employment centers and households shows some concern that needs to be addressed beyond the 1000000 mark We need more jobs to be created in solid sectors of our economy to point to since we were elected into office Yes we could have created some jobs but those employments rate are not as one would hold as something to look to and say we have achieved NO We would have expected more than the 1000000 mark, because there are more Zambians of work age age and force who are still visiting employment centers looking for opportunities Yes you have created more than 500,000 across sectors but we expect more in solid sectors such as mining agricultural and…
NO We would have expected more than the 1000000 mark, because there are more Zambians of workage age and force who are still visiting employment centers looking for opportunities Yes you have created more than 500,000 across sectors but we expect more in solid sectors such as minning agricultural and manufacturing and those must be pronounced more publicly and well statistically graphed for people to relate to say since last election. For instance always show and pronounce the rate of growth or creation of those jobs in those sectors because that is what is important as a mile stone towards social indicators
The employment rate has rather been has been rather luster than in comparison to the rate at which the economy and other economies are , rate at say below 4% with some sectors that have received massive stimulus below 1%.Its been trending and so since since 2000.The median household income has been below average and expectation given those opportunities outlined we also expected the women unemployment rate to have reduced since 2000 ,the total number of people of social cash transfer keeps on growing as opposed to be seen to be reducing reflecting the some policy interventions effective in those empowerments for longterm
Yes more people have been trained since 2000 in our vocational facilities which is a plus for vocational education but the numbers of graduates on the streets surpassed the rate at which we need to effectively create Jobs It shows that we have not resolved the unemployment issue we are though optimistic that we have a bright future under president Edgar lungu to record growth numbers in employment across value sectors Foinstance we have not realized our potential and have not increased our productivity to export more refined exports in goods and services
• To conclude we cannot pretend and address short-term solutions The youth and unemployment situation must be addressed Now and be discussed with boldness and workable solutions There is no pretence about it or cosmetic approach because it is showing at every household level It will not help to simply show the short-term interventions or fundings We need evidence based policies that includes practices to show and support inclusive and quality creation of employments for all Zambia citizens and those policies that will be globally competitive according to some ILO reference Soft issues such as transparence and integrity in administration and compensation for the Zambian workforce must be pronounced More…
Fuseck!
Its shallow commentary It void of all economic reasoning He must concentrate with PR at PF secretariate
Its shallow commentary It void of all economic reasoning He must concentrate with PR at PF secretariate
We need proper employment projections and Occupational Outlook We cannot limit the potential there is in our economy and look at what we need to be doing correct It goes like this :Employment is projected to grow from 162.8 million to 168.8 million over the 2019–29
decade, an increase of 6.0 million jobs, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported
today. This reflects an annual growth rate of 0.4 percent, slower than the 2009-19
annual growth rate of 1.3 percent, which was bolstered by recovery from the 2007-09
Great Recession. The healthcare and social assistance sector is projected to add the
most new jobs, and 6 of the 10 fastest growing occupations are related to healthcare.
Growth in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is projected to be slower (1…
It goes like this :Employment is projected to grow from 162.8 million to 168.8 million over the 2019–29
decade, an increase of 6.0 million jobs, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported
today. This reflects an annual growth rate of 0.4 percent, slower than the 2009-19
annual growth rate of 1.3 percent, which was bolstered by recovery from the 2007-09
Great Recession. The healthcare and social assistance sector is projected to add the
most new jobs, and 6 of the 10 fastest growing occupations are related to healthcare.
Growth in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is projected to be slower (1.8 percent
annually) from 2019 to 2029, compared to the previous decade (2.3 percent annually).
Meanwhile labor productivity is projected to increase from 1.1 percent annually over
the…
:Employment is projected to grow from 162.8 million to 168.8 million over the 2019–29
decade, an increase of 6.0 million jobs, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported
today. This reflects an annual growth rate of 0.4 percent, slower than the 2009-19
annual growth rate of 1.3 percent, which was bolstered by recovery from the 2007-09
Great Recession. The healthcare and social assistance sector is projected to add the
most new jobs, and 6 of the 10 fastest growing occupations are related to healthcare.
Growth in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is projected to be slower (1.8 percent
annually) from 2019 to 2029, compared to the previous decade (2.3 percent annually).
Meanwhile labor productivity is projected to increase from 1.1 percent annually over
the 2009 to 2019 period,…
Macroeconomy
–Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is projected to continue growing during the 2019–29
period, although at a slower rate than it has historically, at 1.8 percent annually
compounded through the projections period.
–Based on the outlook for business investment and efficiency gains anticipated in the
use of labor and capital inputs, productivity is expected to grow at an annual rate of
1.8 percent from 2019 to 2029. This is faster than the 1.1 percent growth from 2009 to
2019. The rebound in productivity growth represents a more normal pattern of growth over
the next decade.
If so many jobs have been created,why is it that we are seeing large numbers of youths roaming the streets.Listen,if and when an economy is doing well,you will see and feel it.Same when large numbers are in employment.Youths will disappear from the streets.To prove that the situation is bad, just advertise for one job,I bet some 5000 youths will turn up.Truth is that there no jobs.The reality can be seen by our naked eyes.. period.
I like the president because he’s honest and Hambo. H n H .
Drama the emperor’s suit story continues one day a child will come out to say the truth that the emperor was not wearing anything