How to Nurse the Unemployment Epidemic

• by Kanya D'Almeida* (washington)
• Monday, September 26, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Two years later, a run-in with local authorities prompted Mohamed Bouazizi, an impoverished fruit vendor from the economically depressed town of Sidi Bouzid, to burn himself alive in an iconic act of self-immolation that sparked the Tunisian revolution and, ultimately, the ongoing Arab Spring.

Critics say this disconnect between 'successful' economic policy, as defined by the Bretton Woods Institutions, and its impacts on the ground, continue to be overlooked, as policymakers forge ahead with plans for the world's economic future.

Referencing plans for the World Bank's upcoming 2013 World Development Report, slated to focus on job creation, the Bank's president Robert Zoellick told a press conference in Washington Sunday, 'With unemployment soaring in developed economies and a youth bulge and lack of jobs - and the lack of dignity associated with work - among many causes of the Arab Spring, this project could not come at a better time.'

His words echoed countless speeches and communiqués issued at the IMF-World Bank annual meetings here this week, as finance ministers hastened to agree on remedies for the multiple crises unfolding around the world, from dogged demonstrations and crumbling currencies in Western Europe to the deadly famine in the Horn of Africa.

More jobs now

World Bank economist Derek Chen conservatively estimates that 205 million people around the world are 'officially' unemployed, though many experts believe that number is likely much higher, especially in the developing world.

According to the International Labour Organisation, the global unemployment rate shot up from 5.6 percent in 2007 to 6.3 percent in 2010, a trend that has not spared even the most economically advanced countries in the world. The working class in the United States is weathering a nine-percent unemployment rate, while 40 percent of young job seekers in Spain are unable to find work.

According to the Bank's 2011 flagship report 'More and Better Jobs in South Asia', the region comprised of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives will have to add between one and 1.2 million additional jobs every months — equivalent to a 40-percent increase in the total world labour force — if it is to ward off intense poverty and unemployment in the next 20 years.

Ahmad Mohamed Ali, president of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group, which is made up of 56 countries dedicated to fostering progress in the Muslim world, told a press conference in Washington Saturday that youth unemployment is a particularly frightening epidemic in the Arab world, two-thirds of which is under the age of 30.

He added that youth in the Islamic states experience the highest rate of unemployment compared with similar demographics around the world, a factor which is thought to have contributed significantly to the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa, as millions of educated, energetic, jobless young people took to the streets largely in the absence of gainful work.

In keeping with the traditional development paradigm, Ali announced the Education for Employment initiative, a partnership between IDB and the International Finance Corporation aimed at fostering job creation amongst youth in the Arab World, which Ali said would receive nearly two billion dollars in the next two years that would be primarily directed towards facilitating entrepreneurship and growth in the private sector.

However, more and more economists are drawing the conclusion that neoliberal growth alone will not solve the decay at the root of the current jobs crisis.

'People will rebel against inequalities even if [their countries] are supposedly experiencing 'decent economic growth', as was the case in Tunisia,' Omar Dahi, professor of economics at Hampshire College, told IPS.

'Neo-liberal globalisation, with its trinity of liberalisation, deregulation, and privatisation, has not delivered, and instead has exposed the most vulnerable populations to the vagaries of international markets and rising commodity prices, while making countries more and more desperate for attracting foreign investment,' Dahi said.

'Economic growth, even when it can be achieved through the private sector, is meaningless if it comes without meaningful social inclusion,' he added.

Employment with dignity?

Jeffrey Sachs, founder and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, echoed Dahi's words in his address to the IDB Saturday.

'Technological advancement has rendered obsolete the concept that hard labour will provide a decent livelihood,' he said. 'Education alone is not enough. In the U.S., having a high school diploma barely guarantees you a job after graduation.'

'When a majority of the world's population is excluded from the benefits of technological advancement, there can be no sustainable growth,' Sachs stressed. 'Inclusion, in all aspects of society, is the key.'

'We can no longer count on the [free] market to save the people. Only the government's organisation and allocation of resources can do this,' he added.

Sachs pointed to the examples of Germany and Turkey as two governments that have recognised the importance of providing young people not only with an education but also with the practical skills necessary to enter a fast-changing global labour force, setting in motion a cycle of job-creation.

'In 2002 three percent of Turkey's population was living on two dollars a day or less,' Ali Babacan, Turkey's deputy prime minister, told the press in Washington Saturday.

'By 2011 that number was down to 0.2 percent of the population, with the Gini coefficient [the measure of a country's gap between the richest and poorest people] constantly on the decline.'

Babacan pointed out that Turkey's system of state-sponsored apprenticeships for students graduating high school or university helped to both shift the financial burden off employers and provide a safety net for young people seeking skills and necessary praxis before entering the job market.

Sachs added that, in addition to state-sponsored skills training, educational tools should be immediately, efficiently and openly sourced online.

'We need to create an online media library, in all languages, accessible by people everywhere on the globe, in order to really equalise social relations in the world,' Sachs said.

'We need solar panels in remote villages to power community computers, which are connected via wireless broadband access. This is not a fantasy — it is easily achievable even now, with minimum effort,' he added.

'There is no reason why my lectures shouldn't be available to millions of people, free of charge. A global virtual university, that wasn't possible a few years ago, is now not only at our fingertips, but is absolutely essential,' he concluded.

*With additional reporting by Rosemary D'Amour.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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