Building a New Growth Strategy
Youth Employment - Youth employment is a national priority, a phrase that has been repeated like a mantra for several years, without finding appropriate answers to this endemic problem that has become a chronic one. As a particular social group, young people find the transition between school and working life difficult. They face enormous difficulties due, in particular, to the quality of the training received, which often does not facilitate their integration. The multiplication of fields in higher education following the introduction of the LMD system has only complicated the situation. Our education system has undergone so many patches that it has become a machine for producing unemployed people. We may have the opportunity to return to this with more details and analysis.
Another difficulty, and not the least, is the vulnerability of young unemployed people, which is explained by the transition period between the date of obtaining the diploma and entering professional life, which sometimes extends over several years. The employment opportunities offered to them are limited, and most of them are forced to resort to self-employment in the informal sector, without being really prepared for it. This is why unemployment is often badly experienced by those concerned and their families. This leads them to seek other solutions, often precarious and random, and which are not without risk, such as illegal immigration, which we are experiencing these last few years as a real drama.
Until now, the mechanisms and other instruments and programs for the integration of young people have proved ineffective, and the number of unemployed people, particularly among graduates, has continued to increase, reaching 160,000, or about a third of the total number of unemployed estimated at 500,000. This means that one in three unemployed people holds a diploma. Graduates, it should be recalled, represent 44.9% of all unemployed young people.
The interim government has recently taken a number of measures to promote the employment of young graduates. These measures are reminiscent of others, which have proved ineffective in the face of this precariousness, which is increasing year after year. Of course, this is only a first set of measures, pending a real response, which consists in stopping precarious employment policies and building a new growth strategy capable of generating qualified and sustainable jobs with better-targeted and more effective programs. But these are measures that do not seem to meet the expectations of thousands of young people who still do not see the end of the tunnel and whose future is uncertain. Young people are no longer willing to be passive, let alone be fooled by promises they do not care about. The thread of trust has been broken, and it takes time to restore it. It is obvious that the transitional government does not have a magic wand to get out of this crisis, which is unfortunately aggravated by both endogenous and exogenous factors.
Endogenous, following the loss of some 20,000 jobs due to the closure of certain companies and factories that have been vandalized and looted. Exogenous, following the announced return from Libya of more than 50,000 Tunisians. And with the upcoming graduation of nearly 70,000 new graduates, the situation will not be easy.
Returning to the latest measures aimed at promoting the employment of young graduates, it must be said that, year after year, the Public Service recruits between 9,000 and 11,000 young people, and that deciding to increase the figure to 14,000, including 8,500 graduates, is a significant effort, but still insufficient given the large number of applications already submitted to the various ministries. The sit-ins in front of a number of ministries and other regional directorates and public companies show, if necessary, the exasperation of young people who are waiting for practical answers to their demands. And when we know that every year, hundreds of thousands of candidates apply for the Capes for a number of positions that has hardly exceeded 3,000, we are entitled to wonder how the administration will act to solve this difficult equation? Knowing that this competition, long criticized by young people, needs to be completely revised, if not simply abolished, and replaced by another more flexible and above all more transparent system.
A system that would take into account objective criteria based on the seniority of the candidate's diploma, the period of unemployment, the order of merit, marital status, age, family and social situation, with priority given to families with more than one unemployed graduate, regional disparity, i.e. the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed in each region, with an advantage for the regions most affected by this scourge. Bonuses could be provided for each criterion so as not to penalize the most deserving. A national commission and regional commissions, bringing together all parties, including representatives of the young people concerned, could consider the establishment of a precise framework.
The statistics exist and can serve as a reference and a working tool. On another level, and to remedy the deficit in government communication, at least in this vital sector of employment, it would be more than desirable to adopt a communication strategy on this issue, a strategy that would involve all the parties concerned, first and foremost the young people themselves, and which would reveal the real figures. Because this government of technocrats, although experienced, unfortunately suffers from the absence of communicators capable of explaining and above all convincing. Because singing the same old song will not solve the problem.
Published on March 13, 2011
Posted online on March 14, 2011
