The region’s economies share many of the challenges associated with demographic growth and weak economic growth. International organisations warn that this problem will worsen in the coming years and recommend the implementation of structural changes.
The weight of informal activities in the country, home to around 80% of Angola’s active labour force, is indisputable even in the origin and path of formal companies. According to indicators from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), ‘more than a third of formal sector companies in Angola started without being registered,’ a trend that is also seen in more than 20 per cent of companies in a quarter of sub-Saharan African countries.
The IMF cites the World Bank’s surveys of companies in the countries mentioned, in an article entitled ‘The clock is ticking: overcoming the urgent challenge of job creation in sub-Saharan Africa’, which points out the major difficulties facing the region in terms of the demography/economy binomial. At the same time as the population is growing rapidly, the poor creation of formal, quality jobs and the low levels of economic growth are a kind of ‘time bomb’ for the short and medium term for the African countries below the Sahara.
The panorama in the region is dominated by subsistence jobs, in a reality where less than a quarter of workers earn a fixed wage. More than a third of the labour force is classified as poor and earns less than 1.90 USD a day. Underemployment is also extremely high, especially in rural areas, which depend on seasonal agriculture. Jobs are mostly informal, especially for young people and women.
‘The region’s labour markets are characterised by high levels of informality and significant barriers to job creation, resulting in a shortage of quality jobs. To address this situation, it is essential to promote broad-based and inclusive productivity growth, particularly in the informal sector,’ argues the IMF.
To change this scenario, governments and key decision-makers in the private sector must implement ‘well-targeted policies for workers’ and eliminate ‘obstacles to business growth’, a description that can easily be applied to the Angolan reality. ‘These efforts must be complemented by policies that support the structural transformation towards higher productivity activities, so that it is possible to significantly expand employment opportunities,’ says the IMF.
By 2030, half of the increase in the world’s labour force will come from sub-Saharan Africa, requiring the creation of up to 15 million new jobs a year. This challenge is particularly urgent in fragile economies, affected by conflict and low incomes. These economies account for almost 80 per cent of the annual job creation needs in the sub-Saharan region.
These countries, such as Angola, have high fertility rates and the young population has not yet reached its peak.
Source: Expansão
