Youth unemployment remains high at 9.2%

Though the national unemployment rate has fallen from 3.3 to 3.1 percent, the percentage of youth languishing without work has remained at 9.2 percent for the last two years.

The Labour Force Survey of 2011 conducted by the labour ministry shows that the youth unemployment continues to be a pressing issue.

The total unemployment rate by age is highest among youth between 15 and 29 years.

Youth between 20 and 24 years constitute 10.3 percent of total unemployed people followed by 6.9 percent of those between 15 and 19 years and 5.4 percent between 25 and 29 years.

Youth unemployment has decreased in urban areas to 18.6 percent from 21.4 percent in the previous year. However, rural youth unemployment has increased from 4.9 to 5.7 percent.

Of the total number of unemployed people by educational attainment, around 42.8 percent are school dropouts.

However, the survey shows that job vacancies available outnumber jobseekers. The total vacancies in 2011 stood at 7,814 and there were only 7,108 people looking for jobs.

The population aged between 24 and 64 years has the highest labour force participation rate ranging from 66 to 88 percent compared to 19 to 58 percent of those aged between 15 and 24 years.

The labour minister, Lyonpo Dorji Wangdi, said that the ministry is concerned about the youth and female unemployment.

Why youth employment is still a challenge?

The officiating chief of the Labour Market Information and Research Division, Karma Lhendup, said youth unemployment is a result of mismatch of skills and expectations. He said even if jobs are available, people choose to remain unemployed.

“If people are willing to work, we have enough jobs,” said the labour minister.

The ministry’s human resource department director, Sonam Rinchen, said although the ministry has trained a lot of youth based on market demands, they are unable to meet the expectations of the jobseekers.

“For instance, we trained about 10 people in laundry in Thailand, and after they came back we tried to place them in some of the hotels. But the trainees were not interested in the job,” he said.

The director said since the youth are not taking up the job that they are trained in, it is a waste of government resources.

Sonam Rinchen added that the department is facing problems to get the youth enrolled in the vocational training institutes because they think it is a blue-collar job. “Bhutanese youth have attitude problems,” he said.

“The only thing we can do is to carry out awareness campaigns and advocacies so that the youth are made aware of the reality,” said the director.

One of the causes of youth unemployment, some officials of the ministry say, is the education system not being job market oriented.

There are 10,500 people without work in the country.

By Pushkar Chhetri

One Response to “Youth unemployment remains high at 9.2%”

1. Rada Wangmo says:

   January 4, 2012 at 9:39 am

   I do agree that youth have attitude problem and it is one of the main causes for them to be unemployed but this problem ultimately can be changed. I think this is not a big problem instead what I see as a major problem is the way various job markets function. I am saying this on the ground that in most of the institutes when employees are recruit, they usually see job experiences which most of the youth lack. Hence, youth loiter while aged people work in the offices. However, this is not referring to all employers in the country,there are some exceptions. So, this is major concern of our youth to be looked at. Thank you.

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