Africa needs to create some 100-million jobs in the next ten years to give work to new entrants into the labour market, the International Labour Office (ILO) said on Friday night.
The ILO’s director-general, Juan Somavia, said Africa should for this reason make employment an objective in itself, instead of a by-product of macro-economic policies.
He was addressing the Organisation of Unity (OAU) Council of Ministers in Durban ahead of the launch of the African Union in the port city next week.
”You cannot reduce poverty without creating jobs,” Somavia said in his submission released on Saturday.
”To appreciate the vertiginous employment deficit in Africa, consider that over the next ten years some 100-million additional jobs will have to be created to meet the demands of new entrants to the labour market.”
Somavia said the informal economy accounted for more than 90% of the 350-million people currently employed on the continent.
This meant that about 90% of the African working population lacked adequate social protection.
Somavia called for Africa to adopt concrete strategies to turn employment into a goal itself.
”And I would like to appeal to you to make the delivery of a steadily increasing number of decent jobs one of the key indicators of the future success of the AU.”
The principle hope of people in Africa was to have jobs, and dignity at work.
”It is a very simple and fundamental aspiration. Yet, this is the biggest fault line in the global economy,” Somavia said.
”The biggest failure of globalisation is not being able to create jobs in places where people need them.”
On the advent of the AU that will replace the 38-year-old OAU, Somavia said the new organisation was clearly not just a change of structure.
”It is a change in approach, in energy, in attitude and conviction,” he said. – Sapa