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VOL. 28, NO. 22, Feb 20, 2009 (Falgun 09 2065) |
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Nobody's Concern
As global economic recession hurts the economic activities in the Middle East and East Asian countries, the demand of Nepalese workers have come down resulting in a situation where herds of unskilled youths are set to swell in the country. At a time when labour disputes, frequent highway blockades and load shedding have forced the closure of hundreds of industries, a new phenomenon in the foreign employment market shatters the hopes of about half a million unskilled young people who want to go abroad for employment. As in the past six decades, the country's main agenda is now drafting a new constitution with several political disputes over the forms of government and structure of state. Nobody, therefore, seems to have time to seriously ponder about the future of rising number of unskilled, uneducated youths who are definite to create social and political disorder in the days to come
By KESHAB POUDEL
Abadhesh Jha, 22, a resident of Lahan, Saptari district 500 kilometres east of capital Kathmandu, cancelled his trip to Malaysia at the last minute following information from the company that his contract has been suspended for the time being. Jha, 25, a bachelor student, who was supposed to work in a timber factory in Malaysia, is now stranded in capital. Following the drastic reduction of demand of furniture products in American and European markets, the factory announced suspension of his appointment.
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Youth at political rally: Uncertain future |
"As there is rampant anarchy in terai, it is impossible to live back home. Since the student election is going to be held soon, I will instead go to a college to campaign for one of the student unions," said Jha.
Birkha Bahadur Tamang, 27, a resident of Thulopakhar of Sindhupalchowk, has been sent back home under a forced leave for about six months from Bahrain. Working in a construction company with a monthly salary of Rs 20, 000 (US$ 250), Tamang used to send Rs. 10,000 a month to his house.
"As there is no job available in villages, I don't know what to do. If I could not get any job, I will have to join politics," said a former Maoist worker who left politics after getting employment opportunity in Bahrain. "As I have experience of working as a worker and since I have experiences of bandhas and shutdowns, one of the ethnic parties has already called me to work for them."
As country's major political parties have been spending much of their time in constitution making and engaging in politics for power, there is no one to seriously think about the state of youths like Jha and Tamang. Due to vanishing job opportunities, it seems certain that they will be part of many political disturbances in the days to come.
Sociologists argue that the unemployed youths are going to be a major force for social and political instability in the coming days. With over 40 percent young population in Nepal, they are potential threat for social and political disorder as huge number of youths do not find job in competitive markets.
According to government estimates, about 400,000 thousands youth enters annually in labour market in the country. Thanks to rising expectations, these youths have higher expectation to make money and live in society. However, for overwhelming number of youths, the quality of education is too low and skills they acquired are inadequate to compete as per the international standard.
"Nepal's population structure is dominated by young with rampant unemployment. They are in forefront all political upheavals. If these youths are not properly adjusted in the employment sector, they are potential threat for political and social instability," said a sociologist. "Instead of giving a quality education, we equipped them with techniques on how to fight with police and burn the tire. They will ultimately ruin us."
Due to political indoctrination in the education institutions and hiring of youths to destabilize the governments by various political parties, there are rare chances to get the quality education in the colleges. Since political parties depend on their sister organizations to start the violent street agitations, overwhelming majority of Nepalese youths are all the time involved in political struggle.
"Frankly speaking, though they don't produce any goods, political parties are major sources for employment. Ruling CPN-Maoist party even claimed to have 100,000 full time and part time workers with 30,000 army and another 20,000 workers with paramilitary organization like Young Communist League. Similarly, it has student units at the school and college level where they recruit the students," said a political observer.
"Nepali Congress and CPN-UML do not have their own army like Maoists but both the parties have youth fronts as well as student wings at the school and college level. CPN-UML has already constituted Youth Force like YCL."
With the growing consumerism, there are high expectations among Nepalese youths. However, they get the low quality of education inadequate to compete in global market. In the name of political rights, overwhelming majority of youths were deprived of education and only a few of them are enjoying political benefits.
"If we don't frame plan to train the youths, they will create the problems for all the government in the future," said a sociologist. "Once a youth deviates from mainstream, it is impossible to tame him," said sociologist.
At the cost of tens of thousands of young students who fought struggles pelting stones in streets, a handful of student leaders got top political slots including the position of prime minister. For overwhelming majority, they end up with inferior quality of education, which they are unable to cash for jobs for their whole lifetime.
Concern on Foreign Employment
Passing through a series of political instability and lack of employment opportunities back home, foreign employment come as a boon to many young Nepalese in the last decade. In the last few years, two million Nepalese have secured jobs in foreign countries. But with the global economic recession gradually hitting hard, there has now come a sudden slowdown of demands for Nepalese workers.
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Young People: Searching destiny |
As it is heavily reliant on the remittances to sustain economy, any effect in the foreign employment will have drastic repercussions in Nepalese economy. "It is almost inevitable that Nepal will have to face severe problems in coming days. As the global economic recession has already started to hit Gulf and East Asian economies, large number of Nepalese will be laid off. This will create problems in the economy as well as increase the number of unemployed people," said Dr. Shanker Sharma, former vice chairman of National Planning Commission. "This will also affect what Nepal has achieved in the poverty reduction in the past decade."
At an interaction recently organized by Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Ministry of Labour and Transport, Nepali ambassadors from major destination countries for Nepalese workers discussed about the future prospects.
"As remittances contribute 18 percent to GDP, the government is closely watching the situation and considering announcing special programs to safeguard this market," said foreign minister Upendra Yadav. "Our report suggested that Nepalese workers are yet to get any threat of mass lay-offs."
However, Nepalese ambassadors in United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Qatar have expressed deep concerns. "There is no immediate threat to the massive lay off of Nepali workers but the trend is not good at all in terms of entry of workers in UAE," said Arjun Bahadur Thapa, Nepalese ambassador to UAE. "Compared to December 2008, the number of arrival of workers in UAE has declined in January."
Nepalese ambassador to Malaysia, too, voiced similar experience. "Based on exports, Malaysian economy is facing the crisis of global economic meltdown. Malaysian government's recent decision to reduce the number of foreign workers may affect Nepalese workers," said envoy Rishi Adhikari.
According to Economic Survey 2008-9, there are 11, 60807 Nepalese working abroad. Malaysia is a major destination with 412,181 workforce, Qatar is second with 322,944; followed by Saudi Arabia at 216798; United Arab Emirates at 135,348; Kuwait at 13374; Bahrain at 9011; other countries at 8065; South Korea at 6441; Hong Kong at 3853 and Oman at 2892.
The number of Nepalese workers going abroad increased drastically in recent years. The number of foreign workers in 2003-04 was 591400; in 2004-05 it rose to 773592 and the number of overseas workers currently stands at 1160807. Nepal has selected 107 countries for foreign employment.
Finance minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai holds the view that the number of overseas workers is much higher. According to his white paper published in September after taking charge of finance ministry, Dr. Bhattarai estimated that there are 2.2 million youths working in various parts of the world.
"The ministry has already started discussions to mitigate the present crisis and find out alternative ways. Although threat is there, the government is yet to face a major crisis from lay off of workers," said minister of Labour and Transport Management Lekh Raj Bhatta.
State of Nepal's Unemployment
There is not exact data available about the number of unemployed and employed population. Compiled through various sources, the government holds the view that the country has over 1.5 million unemployed.
According to White Paper released by finance minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, unemployment is regarded as a serious problem of Nepal. The paper revealed that there are 1.5 million unemployed youths in the country and annually 300,000 unemployed youths enter into the job market seeking jobs. Because of lack of employment opportunities in home, large number of youths head for foreign employment.
Although it is reported that 74.3 percent work force above 15 years are employed, their level of productivity is very low. If the country cannot manage the crisis rightly, it will affect the economic development of the country.
Published by Ministry of Finance, Economic Survey shows that 15 percent of youths are unemployed. Thanks to the conflict, many industries were shut down and many industries are yet to operate in full capacity.
The International Labour Organization's Strategy Report on Poverty Alleviation 2002 predicted that there would be 1.6 million or 15.4 percent of working population unemployed in the country by 2006 or end of tenth year plan. Nepal needs to accelerate the growth rate over 8 percent if Nepal is to reduce the present state of unemployment. The report stated that out of 9.5 million employed population, only 16 percent are wage earners. Remaining 8 million work force are self employed. Out of 8 million work force in rural sector, 3.5 million don't employ others and 4.1 million employees of same family do not get wages for their work.
Challenges for Unemployment
All agree that youth unemployment has been a burning problem in Nepal. Due to low investments in non-agricultural sector and limited diversification and commercialization of agriculture, the domestic employment market is growing at a much lower rate than the rise in number of new job-seekers.
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Local Industry: Shut Down |
Many youths, therefore, seek foreign employment. But, due to skill deficiencies, they mostly find menial and low-paying jobs in the most insecure environments. The problem of unemployment is further exacerbated by rampant under-employment in agriculture sector. These problems need to be addressed as a priority and the solutions lie in enhanced skills training to prepare youths for either better jobs in foreign employment market or for domestic self-employment scaling up expenditure in rural infrastructure that can immediately provide short-term employment opportunities. In the medium-term, however, we must work to improve private sector investment climate.
Finance minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai announced self employment scheme for unemployed youths with 500 million rupees Self Youth Employment Fund. According to the Fiscal Budget 2008-09, the commercial banks and financial institutions will provide up to Rs.200, 000 loan to youths to run the self employment scheme. The areas include service sector, commercialized agriculture and agro industry.
The budget is also allocated to conduct the skilled training programs to 14,200 youths in 20 districts. Under the new budget, more than 66,000 educated youths will be recruited as a volunteer to National Literacy Campaigns, additional teachers, inspectors to control the leakages of revenue. The government is also planning to provide employment to 270,000 youths under the infrastructure development programs.
"Under-employment and rural poverty problems can be addressed only by commercialization of agriculture. We will, therefore, increase investment for market access improvement and market information system in rural areas. Our success in community approach to development has been widely appreciated," said Dr. Bhattarai.
However, the last seven months of disruption in industrial sectors by trade unions affiliated to his party and continuous highways blockade has made the situation worse. The severe load shedding added more problems for industrial sector.
"One can harp a political slogan saying that they will create number of employment opportunity. The reality is going to be very different. Given the country's political situation, there is virtually no possibility to create jobs for large number of people," said Dr. Sharma.
At a time when the global recession is gradually hitting Gulf countries and East Asian countries like Malaysia and growing instability force Nepalese industries to close down, the coming years will be more gloomy for the unemployed youths of Nepal. More there are unemployed youths, more the threat for social, political instability.
