Employment and Unemployment in Tunisia: A Problem Posed with Audacity and Insight
11 February 2013
Read by 1749 persons
Finally, here is someone who, with great audacity and insight, clearly poses the problem of employment, and thus unemployment in Tunisia, in all its dimensions. Indeed, in this study, Habib Touhami has perfectly succeeded in highlighting the terrible complexity of this problem.
First, Habib Touhami explained the dramatic mismatch between two variables with delayed effects (the number of active people and those leaving education), on the one hand, and a variable with an immediate effect (the volume of job creation), on the other hand. New births take at least fifteen years to appear on the job market as first-time job seekers. Similarly, new entrants to primary education only enter the job market after a long period of ten to twenty years. On the other hand, the volume of job creation is the result of short-term effects, mainly related to growth, investment, and budgetary policy.
In Tunisia, this dichotomy between the structural and the cyclical is constantly increasing, mainly due to the dysfunction of our education system. Given the prevailing economic model in the country (low value-added subcontracting activities), the economic fabric mainly generates low-skilled jobs. However, our education system continues to flood the job market with masses of poorly qualified university graduates who are disconnected from the needs of the economy. A potential reform of this education system, even if relevant, can only bear fruit in the very long term. In the meantime, managing the growing stock of unemployed requires mutual sacrifices from the national community, of which none of the social partners (State, employers, and permanent employees) are aware.
In the same vein, Habib Touhami highlights the multitude of myths that make the perception of the problem of employment and unemployment even more opaque. The most serious, and therefore most destructive, myth is the one that grants the State an unlimited capacity for job creation. This myth is widespread not only among ordinary citizens but also and especially among the ruling elite. This results in total confusion in the so-called "employment policies." Among other things, the state budget is doubly burdened: financial benefits for employers and false job creation in the public service. Furthermore, governments have continued to multiply "employment programs" generating largely ephemeral and chimerical jobs.
The current government has gone even further by multiplying the creation of fallacious jobs, from a purely electoral perspective. At the same time, employers are reluctant to structurally consolidate the management of their personnel. As for employed workers, they continue to demand an ill-considered updating of wages, even if it means causing the destruction of some existing jobs.
Victim of countless myths, the national community seems to be gripped by hysteria in the face of this inextricable question of employment and unemployment. May this reflection by Habib Touhami contribute to initiating a real, calm, and reasoned national debate on this issue.
Leaders.com.tn
Posted online February 11, 2013
First, Habib Touhami explained the dramatic mismatch between two variables with delayed effects (the number of active people and those leaving education), on the one hand, and a variable with an immediate effect (the volume of job creation), on the other hand. New births take at least fifteen years to appear on the job market as first-time job seekers. Similarly, new entrants to primary education only enter the job market after a long period of ten to twenty years. On the other hand, the volume of job creation is the result of short-term effects, mainly related to growth, investment, and budgetary policy.
In Tunisia, this dichotomy between the structural and the cyclical is constantly increasing, mainly due to the dysfunction of our education system. Given the prevailing economic model in the country (low value-added subcontracting activities), the economic fabric mainly generates low-skilled jobs. However, our education system continues to flood the job market with masses of poorly qualified university graduates who are disconnected from the needs of the economy. A potential reform of this education system, even if relevant, can only bear fruit in the very long term. In the meantime, managing the growing stock of unemployed requires mutual sacrifices from the national community, of which none of the social partners (State, employers, and permanent employees) are aware.
In the same vein, Habib Touhami highlights the multitude of myths that make the perception of the problem of employment and unemployment even more opaque. The most serious, and therefore most destructive, myth is the one that grants the State an unlimited capacity for job creation. This myth is widespread not only among ordinary citizens but also and especially among the ruling elite. This results in total confusion in the so-called "employment policies." Among other things, the state budget is doubly burdened: financial benefits for employers and false job creation in the public service. Furthermore, governments have continued to multiply "employment programs" generating largely ephemeral and chimerical jobs.
The current government has gone even further by multiplying the creation of fallacious jobs, from a purely electoral perspective. At the same time, employers are reluctant to structurally consolidate the management of their personnel. As for employed workers, they continue to demand an ill-considered updating of wages, even if it means causing the destruction of some existing jobs.
Victim of countless myths, the national community seems to be gripped by hysteria in the face of this inextricable question of employment and unemployment. May this reflection by Habib Touhami contribute to initiating a real, calm, and reasoned national debate on this issue.
Leaders.com.tn
Posted online February 11, 2013
