Guyana is sitting on a time bomb of youth unemployment

A Partnership for National Unity is warning the People’s Progressive Party Civic administration that this country is sitting on a ‘time bomb’ of youth unemployment. The government’s delay in dealing with the jobs crisis and its disregard for measures to defuse the jobs crisis could cause a social explosion which could have dangerous consequences.
The National Employment Report published by the International Labour Organisation, estimated that, based on Guyana’s Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) which was last undertaken over a decade ago, about 44 per cent of the population of working age are “not economically active.”
The fact is that, in addition to persons said to be ‘unemployed’, many who would like to work do not actively seek jobs simply because they have abandoned hope of finding suitable occupations.   Others, though nominally ‘employed’, earn wages that condemn them to living beneath the poverty line. The Report also indicated that young people suffer the most, owing to the fact that school-leavers are inexperienced and have a long wait before they find their first job.
The report of the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development – Eye on the Future: Invest in Youth Now for the Community Tomorrow – noted, among other things, that the primary education dropout rate was “at a staggering height.”  Joblessness among young people in the Caribbean Community, at an average of 23 per cent, was higher than many other developed and developing countries. Guyana, if its young people are to lead successful lives, must reduce the dropout rate, increase the matriculation rate and provide new economic opportunities for school-leavers.
The People’s Progressive Party Civic administration, despite these facts, continues to pay scant attention to the real issues affecting youth, preferring instead to prescribe a series of palliative remedies which do not cure the disease.
Frank Anthony, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, soon after he was appointed in 2006, publicly announced that the National Youth Policy – which had been promulgated in 1994 – would be reviewed. That was seven years ago! Anthony later admitted to the National Assembly that the PPPC Administration still does not have a functional National Youth Policy.  Anthony also chairs the National Youth Commission (NYC), established in March 2002. He claims to have had consultations for a five-year action plan for Youth Development and Empowerment Programme (YDEP). That is still to be seen.
This country’s unemployed young people feel that they are in an employment cul-de-sac. The ILO Report also stated that 77 per cent of educated persons of working age migrate because of the lack of employment opportunities. They feel that they have become entangled in a web of bureaucratic programmes which generate lots of certificates and diplomas but provide few jobs.
Youths find themselves facing a grave employment crisis which has been made worse by the crisis in the public education system and the failure of the PPPC administration to promulgate and pursue a coherent and comprehensive national youth policy.
APNU believes that Guyana should be a nation of youth and for youth.  Nearly seven out of every ten citizens are classified as ‘young.’ Youths (15-24 years) and dependent children (0-14 years) constituted 69 per cent (264,096 persons) of the national population in the last census.  APNU believes, also, that unemployment is the central issue affecting young people in Guyana.
The PPPC administration’s unplanned, eclectic responses to the youth unemployment crisis – the President’s Youth Choice Initiative and the President’s Youth Award: Republic of Guyana, copied from the British Duke of Edinburgh International Award for Young People, never provided employment.
Five government ministries – Ministry of Amerindian Affairs; Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport; Ministry of Education; Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Labour – continue to jostle each other to offer a variety of glamorous, short-term, ad hoc, training courses for young people. They all promise but do not provide, the long-term careers that youths desperately seek.
The Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, for example, earlier this year launched $200M Youth Apprenticeship and Entrepreneur Programme (YAEP). The programme, actually a six-month attachment, targetted youths to be trained in culture, education, governance, health and sports.  The Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport conducts the Youth Entrepreneurial Skills Training (YEST) programme for out-of-school, unskilled and unemployed youths that seeks to prepare participants for entry into other institutions of learning, employment and self-employment.
The Ministry of Home Affairs offers training in what it calls “life skills” and vocational pursuits under its Citizen Security Programme (CSP). The Ministry of Labour, through its Board of Industrial Training (BIT) conducts a two-year apprenticeship programme now called the National Training Project for Youth, Empowerment (NTPYE) for youths who have not completed high school.
The United States embassy, not to be outdone, plunged into the youth training labyrinth. The Embassy last year, in March 2012 launched a three-week cultural and leadership exchange programme called the Youth Ambassador Programme (YAP) sponsored by the US Department of State, focused on youth citizen diplomacy, service and volunteerism.
The tragedy is that, despite the ferment – CSP; NTPYE; PYCI; PYARG; YAEP; YAP; YDEP and YEST – there has been little employment. Too many Guyanese youths still leave school unskilled, enter the workforce for the first time and are obliged to resort to the informal sector for employment in low-paying occupations.
Four out of every ten youths face a jobless future and the PPPC administration is still to announce a plan to deal with this crisis!