ILO: Africa does not create enough jobs

by Addis Getachew Tadesse

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia

In an interview with Anadolu Agency, International Labor Organization (ILO) Director Guy Ryder explained how Africa can build employment and job creation.

Speaking on the sidelines of the ILO’s 13th African Regional Meeting at Addis Ababa on Wednesday, Ryder said that the key issue in Africa is “vulnerable work,” workers stuck in the informal economy who have no social protection or any guarantees of regular income.

“For the most part, in African countries, the problem is not defined by or measured by open unemployment. If there is no social protection system, and social security system is not enough, you have to work. So you work in the informal economy, you work in subsistence agriculture, you work selling in the streets. So the real measure of the problem is the level of informal work; what we call vulnerable work, which means people working on their own account, people working as unpaid family helpers. And that makes up between 75 to 80 percent of Africa’s working people,” Ryder said.

As a result, it’s not just a matter of creating more jobs, according to Ryder.

“But we also have to upgrade the quality of the jobs. We’ve to move people out of informality into formal work and we have to start to attack the roots of vulnerability of work. So the qualitative and quantitative elements need to go together,” he said.

There is a clear consensus on how to raise the quality of work, Ryder pointed out.

“We want jobs that give a decent standard of living in terms of pay, which are conducted under safe conditions and which are secure. We want social protection, minimum social protection – and I am afraid there is still a big deficit in that regard,” Ryder said.

How does this apply to Africa? Despite relatively strong growth performance over the last decade, Africa is not generating enough jobs, Ryder said.

“So we need to convert the growth into jobs. And, by the way, we need stronger growth as well. What does that mean? It means broadening the development base. The dynamic parts of African economies tend to be very narrowly concentrated, for example, in the extractive industries, in the primary resource industries. They provide very large proportions of revenues for the government and output. But they provide only one percent of the jobs. So we need to diversify economies. We need to increase investment, but we need to make sure this investment is spread across a wider variety of sectors,” Ryder explained.

There are specific policies that should be implemented in Africa, Ryder said.

One approach would be stimulation for manufacturing and industry, which is weak in Africa, Ryder continued.

Efforts should also be made, Ryder said, to improve conditions in the rural sector. “This has been neglected in policy making all too often. The rural sector should be a place where people can earn decent living.”

Then, social protection systems must be extended. Ryder said that the ILO is working on ways to provide minimum social protection platforms across the world, even in the informal economy.

“We need to look at skills upgrading. We need to look at how to promote and stimulate small- and medium-size enterprises.”

Financing development is another area that needs attention, according to Ryder.

“We need to mobilize more resources to help Africa develop. And there are basically a limited number of origins: one is foreign direct investment, which is estimated to reach $75 billion in Africa this year. But it is still concentrated in a limited number of activities. It needs to be diversified. There is still the question of overseas international development assistance. It is important. The volume will not be enough to make a difference, but it can be used strategically as a catalyst for change,” Ryder said.

Ryder stressed that Africa needs to increase domestic resources through effective taxation systems, through fighting corruption, and through the effective use of public revenues.

But Ryder believes that change is coming to Africa.

“There is a reason that Africa has to be optimistic. You know everybody talks about Africa’s potential. But I actually think that today there is a moment of opportunity for Africa, both because of regional and global contexts. African governments are making the issue of unemployment as a greater priority than before. I leave Addis Ababa tonight with optimism.”