The Battle for Employment Begins in Tunisia
"You know, we waited too long for things to get better. We were lied to too much, we were humiliated too much. We understand that everything won't be solved in a month, but we want things to change. We want to be sure that we are no longer being lied to!" Since my appointment, I have met hundreds of job seekers, heard thousands of sentences as strong, resolute and sensible as Ouissem's, which you have just read.
However, the double duty of truth and dignity prevents me from making vain promises or adopting short-term measures, miracle cures that would only appear to be so. We are rich in a voluntary, curious and educated youth, who only waited for freedom and equal opportunities to express themselves. Our country has many assets so that unemployment gradually and durably decreases. This must be a great national cause, which commits each of us, which brings us together, without distrust or short-sighted illusions.
We have just freed ourselves from a regime that sought to curb the initiatives of the majority, to confiscate resources, profits and projects, to let arbitrariness reign until the allocation of a job, to cast suspicion on those who created a job! The martyrdom of Mohammed Bouazizi, driven to despair while he only wanted to live from his work, is symbolic of this state violence that must belong to the past: our youth must not only be free in their economic initiatives but also be encouraged and helped.
But freedom is a path, including in the head, heart and behavior of each person. And while it takes its place, we must face the emergencies of the situation as well as the legitimate impatience of many of our fellow citizens. The transitional government has a limited mission in time: to prepare the elections and manage its emergencies without compromising the future. Truth and dignity command us to say what we will do, what we say, without giving in to the ease of unrealistic measures.
Act for everyone, and act quickly! In the immediate future, this mission will revolve around four main axes:
- assistance to job seekers will be strengthened, particularly through the "AMAL" project, which sets up real active job searching, and offers 50,000 young people a transitional activity, training and support towards obtaining sustainable employment;
- support for businesses will be consolidated, so that they can go through the crucial transition period without having to cut jobs and be, as quickly as possible, free to create new ones;
- the development of new jobs will be initiated. They will be accessible at different skill levels, from the lowest to the highest, also accessible in all regions of Tunisia;
- business creation will be simplified, so that everyone who has a project can quickly accomplish it and launch their activity. Let us keep in mind the case of Imed, a young graduate, who, for lack of sufficient personal contribution, had to give up creating a dozen jobs: never again!
As these political choices show, we assume our conviction that unemployment cannot be tackled without laying the foundations for growth. By artificially creating public jobs under pressure from the emergency, we would be irresponsible, we would promise Tunisia tomorrow an even more critical situation. Economists tell us that it takes one to two years to revive growth.
The best time to support growth was two years ago. But the second best time is now! However, the State is taking its share of this renewal. In addition to the 14,000 positions in the civil service and the creation of the civil service intern status which will allow 10,000 higher education graduates in a situation of exclusion to prepare to integrate the civil service in 2012, we are launching many projects. We will launch public works projects. We will also initiate other projects, such as the digitization of the heritage of the National Library, a project carried out with the Ministry of Culture and the State Secretariat for Communication Technologies which will create more than 1,000 jobs, particularly highly qualified ones, and provide activity for dozens of SMEs.
We must not remain prisoners of past illusions, which associated fatalism and vain promises of a state that wants to control everything. Nowhere in the world has a government been seen to build the future by creating 300,000 jobs with a stroke of a pen or an announcement on television.
Freedom is a path, I told you earlier, the same is true of trust. For too long we have suffered under the yoke of fear, suspicion and their most insidious corollary: distrust. Regions were thus opposed, the less qualified to the most qualified, the public sector to the private sector. We divided to better reign, we blamed or repressed initiatives that did not have the blessing of a powerful minority. Maintaining or developing these reflexes, this society of distrust where nothing lasting can grow, would be paying tribute too little deserved to yesterday's power!
Trust is the engine of any free society. It is when they have confidence and when they are convinced of this renewed confidence by Tunisia that our companies will in turn convince investors to believe in their projects. It is when one has confidence in the future that one creates lasting jobs. It is when one has confidence that one chooses to strengthen one's knowledge and training, that one invests, individually and for the good of the community, in one's career. But none of this can be achieved without widespread mobilization: employment is now everyone's business.
Published on March 21, 2011
Posted online on March 21, 2011
