Africa-Press – Tanzania. TODAY, youth unemployment is one of the most pressing challenges in Africa, Tanzania included. According to the World Bank, youths make up 60 percent of all of Africa’s unemployed.
Over the next three decades, about 15 to 20 million young people will reach working age each year. But the lack of proper jobs will increase the unemployment rate each year.
Given this, there is an urgent need for an ecosystem that can offer quality jobs as well as matching skills.
That is why recently during the climax of the sixth University of Dar es Salaam Research and Innovation week in Dar es Salaam, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa called on researchers and innovators across all sectors of the country to embark on research and innovation of emerging technologies, which can boost industrial growth and people’s livelihood.
Premier Majaliwa also urged industrialists, the business community and economists to merge the findings of their researches in different sectors, in quest to propel the country’s development agenda.
Africa is an enormous continent, and each region faces its own specific challenges with regard to youth unemployment.
In the Middle East and North African (MENA) region, there is a mismatch between supply of and demand for skills, a lack of decent and sustainable jobs as well as private sector investments, and there are high unemployment rates among young women.
Other parts of Africa tend to be challenged by the fact that youths lack skills, due to low education enrolment and completion rates.
The majority of youths in these regions work in the informal sector, especially in agriculture.
With the PM’s advice in mind, there is need to equip potential employees with skills that match the future demand of employers or support starting a business themselves, such as career skills and entrepreneurial skills.
The main feature is to strengthen motivation and perseverance to make people resilient to inevitable setbacks.
Strengthen the growth expectations of employers by defining skills for development of the company and skills for development of the human capital.
Instead of focusing on the level of education, employers should look at the skills and competencies of the applicants.
This is experienced as an important component to boost sectors and value chains. Proper matching of individuals to jobs based on competencies.
This reversed approach innovates the way the labour market works and increases the chances of the unemployed in finding a job.
