Employment: Snapshot of the job market

Unemployment is one of the cornerstone of the Budget 2016-17 presented by Pravind Jugnauth last week. Creating jobs has been one of the ten components he announced during his speech. He plans to create around 21,000 jobs through the different solutions proposed. What is the current situation? We provide you with a snapshop.

“Budget 2016/17 will indeed set our country on a course to full employment by taking some 20,000 youths, men and women from unemployment and soon,” said the Finance Minister. The second part of his ten-point budget dealt with job creation.

Among the measures announced, government will enlist 4,000 persons under the National Skills Development Programme for training in technical skills that are in high demand. This will include training for 1,000 young people in each of the following sectors: ICT, tourism and hospitality; nursing and paramedics and construction and other industries. These trainees will be paid a monthly stipend of Rs 5,000.

It has also provided for the training of 1,200 seafarers for cruise jobs and in shipping companies. Also, seafarers will be exempted from the payment of income tax. The training levy to be used for meeting consultancy costs in the training of staff in new technologies. A special scheme has been launched for the placement of 200 trainee engineers in public sector bodies. The budget provided for the employment of 2,000 unemployed under the YEP. Government will fill 7,200 vacancies and new posts in the civil service. 

“We expect that the new policies to boost up economic growth and employment in this Budget would generate some 7,000 new jobs in the short term. With these measures, some 21,400 youths, men and women will be taken out of unemployment,” stated Pravind Jugnauth.

In 2015, 46,300 people were looking for jobs31, representing an increase of 1,500 (100 males and 1,400 females) from 2014. The unemployment rate32 in 2015 was estimated at 7.9 per cent compared to 7.8 per cent in 2014.

Around 6,200 (13 per cent) had not reached the Certificate of Primary Education (CPE) or equivalent and a further 14,300 (31 per cent) had not completed the Cambridge School Certificate (SC) or equivalent.

Youth Unemployment

In 2005, the youth unemployment rate35 was around 26.1 per cent. It dropped to 19 per cent in 2008, before rising again to reach 26.3 per cent in 2015. For the first quarter of 2016, 43 per cent of job seekers were aged between 16 and 24 years. 

There were 43,500 job seekers as at the first quarter 2016 and the unemployment rate was estimated at 7.6 per cent, which is lower than the 8.7 per cent observed in the first quarter 2015. Unemployment rate for year 2016 is projected at 7.7 per cent.