Unemployment has worsened under the PPP/C
Kaieteur News – The Vice President has announced that government will soon be creating 800 part-time jobs in Region Two. But while this is a welcome measure, it cannot dent that region’s high unemployment.
Nationally, unemployment is a major problem. By the government’s own statistics, unemployment stood at 14.5% in the third quarter of 2021. About 42,000 persons have been listed as unemployed in Guyana – unemployment refers to those persons who are presently not working but who are available and actively looking for work.
Rural unemployment is chronic. The rural labour force is far larger than the urban labour force. In fact, in terms of size it is more than twice that of the urban labour force. The problem is therefore not just the shortage of jobs in rural Guyana; it is also the size of the unemployed workforce.
Rural unemployment has worsened under the PPP/C. At the end of March 2020, there were about 28,000 persons unemployed in rural Guyana. As at last March, this figure had increased to 31%. The rural unemployment rate has increased from 13.1% to 14.8% during the same period.
The situation is not much different nationally. The, the first year of the PPP/C administration did not see an improvement in overall employment. It deteriorated from 12.8% to 14.5%.
Young people are the most seriously affected. One in every three youths cannot find a job. The young people are being failed by the school system and now by the job market.
There therefore can be no comfort in the 800 part-time jobs which will be created in Region Two. It will further bloat the public bureaucracy and add to its inefficiency. The initiative represents an admission of failure on the part of the government especially in relation to private sector development. The private sector should have been creating these new jobs, not the government.
The creation of these 800 temporary jobs will not change the calculus in the supermarket. In fact, the status of those who are daily seeing their salaries buying less and less will remain unchanged. The part time jobs will go to persons of households in which there is no breadwinner. It is therefore a poverty alleviation strategy and will not add to the income of existing workers those whose spending power is being eroded by inflation.
The government cannot be blamed for imported inflation. The government is good at making excuses about the external causes of local problems. But this does not absolve it from finding solutions to the local inflation crisis.
If, by its own strange economic logic, the government believes that by increasing disposable income, it will cushion the effects of the cost of living why then does it not immediately increase the national minimum wage so that the exploited sections of the private sector – girls who work 12-hour shifts for as little as $1,500 per day, and domestics and security guards who are paid pitiful wages?
The objection to doing so at this time is predictable. There will be sermons about how the increased employment costs will be passed on through an increase in prices. But is the same argument not valid about increasing employment?
Why is the government so eager to create a small number of jobs when it can immediately enhance the incomes of tens of thousands of households with the stroke of a pen – by increasing the national minimum wage to $60,000 per annum?
The government’s friends in the private sector are not opposed to this. Why then government is rushing to directly increase state employment?
What about the 50,000 jobs which the President promised over the next five years. This works out to about 10,000 jobs per year. These jobs were supposed to be generated by the economy. The construction boom was supposed to create thousands of jobs and increase demand for goods and services thereby having a multiplier effect on employment.
Promised by the government, this massive job-creation scheme has not materialised. As mentioned before, national unemployment increased from 12.8% in the first quarter of 2020 to 14.5% as of last September. In other words, unemployment has gotten worse rather than better under the PPP/C.
The greatest burden of this unemployment is being shouldered by women. Female unemployment in fact has declined by as much as 4% since the PPP/C took office, suggesting that the 800 part-time jobs in Region Two should be reserved for females.
The fundamental flaw of the government’s approach, however, is that there is bigger crisis facing the country now: the cost-of-living. And those 800 part-time jobs in Region Two are not going to ease the frustrations which are being felt by consumers.
