## More than 18 Million Jobs Needed!

_IMF Blog, October 31, 2010_

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## Bibliographic details
- Authors: Masood Ahmed
- Published: October 31, 2010

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### Context and scale
- 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:
  - For the past two decades, average unemployment has been in the vicinity of 12 percent and was still in double digits in 2008.
  - Youth unemployment is at over 20 percent in the region; in some countries it is even higher.
  - Some estimates suggest that as much as 15 percent of the combined labor force of these countries is working in countries abroad.
  - Over the past decade, the labor force in these six countries has grown on average by 2¾ percent a year.
  - 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.

### Why unemployment is chronically high
- Skills mismatch:
  - Job seekers do not have the skills required by firms active in domestic and international markets.
  - 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.
- Public sector hiring incentives and wage differentials:
  - Hiring practices by the public sector have created expectations that private firms often cannot meet.
  - Governments in the region tend to look for applicants with university degrees, often placing little emphasis on the type of degree.
  - Public sector wages are relatively high; for example, the Egyptian public sector on average pays 48 percent more than private firms.
- Reduced ability to migrate for work:
  - 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.

### Policy recommendations and priorities
- Promote growth:
  - Growth is not the sole answer but remains essential to reducing unemployment.
  - Challenges to growth include slower growth among traditional trading partners in Europe and increased competition from fast-growing emerging markets.
  - 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.
- Help job seekers acquire the right skills:
  - Better align education with market-required skills by involving firms or chambers of commerce in curriculum development.
  - Implement well-designed training programs for the unemployed to increase employability.
  - Encourage public-private partnerships to deliver practical, market-aligned skills training.
- Untangle social protection from labor regulations:
  - Provide help to citizens hit by misfortune without creating rigidities that harm job creation.
  - 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.
  - Aim to strike the right balance between labor market flexibility and social protection.

### Regional examples of skills and employment initiatives
- 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.

*Source: IMF blog post “More than 18 Million Jobs Needed!” (October 31, 2010).*

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## References

- [‘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)

_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2010/10/31/more-than-18-million-jobs-needed_