{
  "title": "More than 18 Million Jobs Needed!",
  "publication": "IMF Blog, October 31, 2010",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2010/10/31/more-than-18-million-jobs-needed",
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  "summary": "For the six oil-importing countries in the Middle East and North Africa region—Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia—high unemployment is a chronic problem. Unemployment rates here are among the highest worldwide.",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Context and scale",
      "content": "- Publication: Masood Ahmed, October 31, 2010.\n- Focus: Six oil-importing countries in the Middle East and North Africa region—Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia.\n- Labor force growth and job needs:\n  - For the past two decades, average unemployment has been in the vicinity of 12 percent and was still in double digits in 2008.\n  - Youth unemployment is at over 20 percent in the region; in some countries it is even higher.\n  - Some estimates suggest that as much as 15 percent of the combined labor force of these countries is working in countries abroad.\n  - Over the past decade, the labor force in these six countries has grown on average by 2¾ percent a year.\n  - These countries need to create about 18½ million full-time jobs over the next decade to provide employment for young people looking for their first job and to bring down unemployment."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Why unemployment is chronically high",
      "content": "- Skills mismatch:\n  - Job seekers do not have the skills required by firms active in domestic and international markets.\n  - Despite substantial improvements in access to education, firms regularly complain about the lack of suitable skills among job seekers; schools and universities often fail to produce graduates with the skills needed.\n- Public sector hiring incentives and wage differentials:\n  - Hiring practices by the public sector have created expectations that private firms often cannot meet.\n  - Governments in the region tend to look for applicants with university degrees, often placing little emphasis on the type of degree.\n  - Public sector wages are relatively high; for example, the Egyptian public sector on average pays 48 percent more than private firms.\n- Reduced ability to migrate for work:\n  - Historically, many workers moved abroad in search of work, but increasing competitive pressure from other emerging markets and sharply higher unemployment in advanced economies mean fewer employment prospects abroad than before."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Policy recommendations and priorities",
      "content": "- Promote growth:\n  - Growth is not the sole answer but remains essential to reducing unemployment.\n  - Challenges to growth include slower growth among traditional trading partners in Europe and increased competition from fast-growing emerging markets.\n  - Policy actions: streamline cumbersome regulations and improve the business environment to raise growth; better integrate into global supply chains; view other emerging markets as partners for cooperation as well as competitors.\n- Help job seekers acquire the right skills:\n  - Better align education with market-required skills by involving firms or chambers of commerce in curriculum development.\n  - Implement well-designed training programs for the unemployed to increase employability.\n  - Encourage public-private partnerships to deliver practical, market-aligned skills training.\n- Untangle social protection from labor regulations:\n  - Provide help to citizens hit by misfortune without creating rigidities that harm job creation.\n  - Allow firms flexibility to lay off workers during severe downturns while protecting individuals through a tight and targeted social safety net that includes an unemployment insurance system.\n  - Aim to strike the right balance between labor market flexibility and social protection."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Regional examples of skills and employment initiatives",
      "content": "- Jordan: ‘Injaz’—a partnership between the Ministry of Education and the private sector launched in 1999 (now expanded to cover a dozen countries in the region)—provides children with teamwork skills, entrepreneurial thinking, and work-readiness training.\n- Egypt: Cairo University’s Career and Entrepreneurship Development Office offers practical training and internship programs to empower students to innovate, start businesses, and acquire market-demanded skills.\n- Regional: The Education for Employment Foundation works with corporations and industries to assess demand for skills and provide correspondingly tailored training programs for young people.\n\nSource: IMF blog post “More than 18 Million Jobs Needed!” (October 31, 2010).\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- ‘lost generation’\n- Regional Economic Outlook\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2010/10/31/more-than-18-million-jobs-needed"
    }
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    "Authors: Masood Ahmed",
    "Published: October 31, 2010",
    "Publication: Masood Ahmed, October 31, 2010.",
    "Focus: Six oil-importing countries in the Middle East and North Africa region—Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia.",
    "Labor force growth and job needs:",
    "Skills mismatch:",
    "Public sector hiring incentives and wage differentials:",
    "Reduced ability to migrate for work:",
    "Promote growth:",
    "Help job seekers acquire the right skills:",
    "Untangle social protection from labor regulations:",
    "Jordan: ‘Injaz’—a partnership between the Ministry of Education and the private sector launched in 1999 (now expanded to cover a dozen countries in the region)—provides children with teamwork skills, entrepreneurial thinking, and work-readiness training.",
    "Egypt: Cairo University’s Career and Entrepreneurship Development Office offers practical training and internship programs to empower students to innovate, start businesses, and acquire market-demanded skills.",
    "Regional: The Education for Employment Foundation works with corporations and industries to assess demand for skills and provide correspondingly tailored training programs for young people.",
    "[‘lost generation’](http://blogs.imf.org/2010/09/14/saving-the-lost-generation/)",
    "[Regional Economic Outlook](http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/reo/2010/mcd/eng/mreo1024.htm)"
  ],
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