Inclusive growth and productive employment in Zambia
Lusaka (ILO News): The International Labour Organization (ILO) in conjunction with the World Bank (WB) Group in Zambia hosted a dissemination event carrying the theme: Let’s Work Partnership in Zambia, which highlighted a Jobs Diagnostic on Zambia.
16 June 2017
Zambia remains one of Africa’s youngest countries by median age. Over the next two generations, demography will move in Zambia’s favor as the dependency ratio falls. But this fall in dependency will be an asset only if Zambia’s economy can generate faster growth of jobs with higher productivity. According to the UN’s mid-range population projections, at least 375,000 young people on average will enter the workforce each year to 2030. Between 2030 and 2050, this average number doubles to 747,000 jobs per year.
Secretary to cabinet Dr.Roland Msiska underlined in his opening remarks of the Workshop that Job creation was a key priority for Government for the next five (5) years. He expressed gratitude that the ILO and the World Bank “Lets Wok Programme”, would encourage dialogue which would bring aspects that may be helpful as the country repositions itself to diversifying into other sectors such as Agriculture, Construction.
Making his presentation on Zambian Economic Outlook, ILO Pretoria Employment Specialist Bernd Mueller pointed out that Over-reliance on mining Copper in particular constituted 11% of GDP, 70% of export, but only 1.4% of employment. He also mentioned that about 37.5% of the labour force are ‘working poor’ compounded with the high population growth and the volatile kwacha.
He brought out serious concerns that were affecting the county such as unemployment in urban areas, underemployment in rural areas as well as overall underutilization of labour standard which currently stand 18 per cent.
And World Bank Representative Dino Merotto pointed out that the country’s impressive economic growth had delivered less impressive jobs outcomes. The economy grew by an annual average of 7.3 percent between 2000 and 2014, and per capita GDP grew by 4.3 percent. At the same time, employment grew by only 2.81 percent per year. He said the implied employment elasticity of growth for the period was 0.28 which was significantly lower than the 0.49 estimated elasticity for comparable lower-middle-income countries.
Meanwhile ILO Country Director for Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique, Mr Alexio Musindo stressed the need for increased number of decent employment opportunities for Zambian women and men, as it was the remedy for poverty reduction in the country.
Mr Musindo said ILO holds in high regard its values of social dialogue and tripartism: bringing representatives of government, employers, and workers together to the table to jointly find workable solutions, as it is the key to support growth that is truly sustainable, inclusive and poverty reducing.
“Towards this aspiration, ILO has supported its Zambian constituents a great deal over the past years. One of the major efforts has been to support Zambia in the development of the National Employment and Labour Market Policy (NELMP), which was finalised mid-2016.”Mr Musindo disclosed.
The Director hailed the WB’s for the recommendations for the Jobs Framework, which were presented to Zambian stakeholders for discussion. He said they could be closely aligned with the stipulations of the NELMP and other Zambian frameworks, such as the Industrialization and Job Creation Strategy and the 7NDP.
Key issues that came from the discussion included;
Some of the recommendations that came out of the group discussion included;
The Dissemination event took place on the 13th June at Taj Pamodzi hotel in Lusaka, Zambia. The event attracted representatives from the Ministries of Finance, Commerce, Trade, and Industry, Labour and Social Security, Zambia Federation of Employers representative among others.
Secretary to cabinet Dr.Roland Msiska underlined in his opening remarks of the Workshop that Job creation was a key priority for Government for the next five (5) years. He expressed gratitude that the ILO and the World Bank “Lets Wok Programme”, would encourage dialogue which would bring aspects that may be helpful as the country repositions itself to diversifying into other sectors such as Agriculture, Construction.
Making his presentation on Zambian Economic Outlook, ILO Pretoria Employment Specialist Bernd Mueller pointed out that Over-reliance on mining Copper in particular constituted 11% of GDP, 70% of export, but only 1.4% of employment. He also mentioned that about 37.5% of the labour force are ‘working poor’ compounded with the high population growth and the volatile kwacha.
He brought out serious concerns that were affecting the county such as unemployment in urban areas, underemployment in rural areas as well as overall underutilization of labour standard which currently stand 18 per cent.
And World Bank Representative Dino Merotto pointed out that the country’s impressive economic growth had delivered less impressive jobs outcomes. The economy grew by an annual average of 7.3 percent between 2000 and 2014, and per capita GDP grew by 4.3 percent. At the same time, employment grew by only 2.81 percent per year. He said the implied employment elasticity of growth for the period was 0.28 which was significantly lower than the 0.49 estimated elasticity for comparable lower-middle-income countries.
Meanwhile ILO Country Director for Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique, Mr Alexio Musindo stressed the need for increased number of decent employment opportunities for Zambian women and men, as it was the remedy for poverty reduction in the country.
Mr Musindo said ILO holds in high regard its values of social dialogue and tripartism: bringing representatives of government, employers, and workers together to the table to jointly find workable solutions, as it is the key to support growth that is truly sustainable, inclusive and poverty reducing.
“Towards this aspiration, ILO has supported its Zambian constituents a great deal over the past years. One of the major efforts has been to support Zambia in the development of the National Employment and Labour Market Policy (NELMP), which was finalised mid-2016.”Mr Musindo disclosed.
The Director hailed the WB’s for the recommendations for the Jobs Framework, which were presented to Zambian stakeholders for discussion. He said they could be closely aligned with the stipulations of the NELMP and other Zambian frameworks, such as the Industrialization and Job Creation Strategy and the 7NDP.
Key issues that came from the discussion included;
- Poverty rate being high especially in places with high density population :Luapula, Northern, Muchinga, Eastern, Western provinces and part of the Central corridors
- Through copper boom Zambia has grown fast but has not reduced poverty enough because the economy grew 7.5% and jobs only grew by 3.1% (1970-2013)
- Zambia needs to create more good jobs to capitalise its growing youth and support the economic transformation underway
- The economic transformation (structure change, urbanisation, formalisation) has started but productivity in services is falling and industry has stopped rising because too many of the new jobs are informal.(2000-2014)
- Labour force participation is falling in rural and lowest for youths
Some of the recommendations that came out of the group discussion included;
- Zambia needed to increase exports of processed and unprocessed food based products
- Need to equip youths with skills to be productive
- Improve labour mobilisation for women and youths
- Develop microeconomic and regulations policies with jobs and poverty reduction in mind
- Infrastructure development to enhance job creation
- Full consideration must be made of the demand side as the supply side is being targeted for improvements
The Dissemination event took place on the 13th June at Taj Pamodzi hotel in Lusaka, Zambia. The event attracted representatives from the Ministries of Finance, Commerce, Trade, and Industry, Labour and Social Security, Zambia Federation of Employers representative among others.