By Taonga Sabola:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has challenged Malawi and other sub-Sahara Africa countries to create more jobs for their people.
The Bretton Woods institution has issued the appeal in its October Regional Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa released last week.
The call comes at a time thousands of students are graduating from various universities almost every month but the jobs are hard to come by.
According to the IMF, harnessing Africa’s booming population growth potential requires generating vast numbers of productive, quality jobs that provide above-subsistence-level income, whether within structured enterprises or through self-employment.
It notes that without sufficient jobs, poverty and food insecurity will rise, increasing the likelihood of social tension, conflict, and instability.
The IMF adds that a lack of economic opportunities can also drive migration, primarily within sub-Saharan Africa but increasingly beyond the region.
“Sub-Saharan Africa urgently needs to create jobs for its growing population, especially in fragile and conflict-affected states, and low-income countries. The region’s labor markets are characterized by high levels of informality and significant barriers to job creation, resulting in too few good jobs.
“To tackle this, broad-based and inclusive productivity growth, including in the informal sector, is crucial. Transforming informality into a viable pathway for employment requires targeted worker-level policies and the removal of obstacles to firm growth.
“These efforts should be complemented by policies that support structural transformation towards higher productivity activities to expand meaningful employment opportunities,” reads the report in part.
Speaking on February 9 when he delivered the 2024 State of the Nation Address in Parliament, President Lazarus Chakwera said Malawi created 197,809 new jobs in the last financial year.
“This brings the cumulative total of new jobs since 2020 to 1,358,809, mostly in the agriculture, health, education sectors and management support services.
“However, my Administration has also embarked on the quest to secure jobs for young people abroad, and we have already succeeded in sending hundreds of workers to Israel,” he said.
Chakwera observed that the ultimate goal of all government’s job creation efforts is the same as the ultimate goal of all our wealth creation efforts, namely to improve Malawians’ standard of living through better public service delivery.
According to IMF, as the rest of the world grapples with population decline, Africa’s population is booming. It is estimated that by 2030, half of the increase in the global labor force will come from sub- Saharan Africa, requiring the creation of up to 15 million new jobs annually.
