By Khalifa Hemed
Published February 5, 2020
Though 12 million graduates enter the African labour market annually, only three million of them get jobs.
African Economic Outlook, an annually report by African Development Bank (AfDB) that provides updates and forecasts of Africa’s economic performance, calls for youth unemployment to be given top priority by African governments.
“Given the fast pace of change, driven by the 4th industrial revolution – from artificial intelligence to robotics, machine learning, quantum computing – Africa must invest more in re-directing and re-skilling its labor force, and especially the youth, to effectively participate,” Akinwumi Adesina, President of AfDB, says. “Youth must be prepared for the jobs of the future – not the jobs of the past.”
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According to the report two-thirds of Africa’s youth are either overeducated or undereducated. The undereducated share (nearly 55 percent) is considerably higher than in other regions (36 percent).
Skill and education mismatches, the report says, affect youth labour productivity indirectly through wages, job satisfaction, and job searching. Overeducated African youth earn, on average, 18 percent less than youth with the same level of education who work in jobs that match their education.
Also, youth who believe they are overskilled for jobs are 3.4 percent less likely to be satisfied with current jobs, and as a consequence may be less productive.
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The report contains several recommendations for reversing negative trends and creating productive and adequate workforces. These include designing national strategies for education and skills development that include young people, school dropouts, workers in the informal economy, and in economically and socially disadvantaged groups.
“African countries can achieve universal primary enrollment by just improving the efficiency of education spending. Investing in education and infrastructure offers a greater growth payoff than investing exclusively in either,” Hanan Morsy, Director of Macroeconomic Policy, Forecasting and Research at AfDB, says.
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AfDB, that says it is addressing Africa’s skills gap through its support to scientific centers of excellence such as the African University of Science and Technology, says that it has also invested in the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology which provides what it calls world-class training in ICT at the Master’s degree level in collaboration with the Carnegie Mellon University.
“Training in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” Adesina says, “is critical to overcoming the continent’s ‘mountain of youth unemployment’.”
