General causes of unemployment in developing countries
- Rapid growth of population. The fact that population grows faster the rat rate at which employment is created; many people remain unemployed.
- Existence of the defective (poor) education system. The system is theoretical in nature therefore prepares job seekers instead of job creators. The white-collar jobs are in short supply yet the turnover of the education system is high, leaving many school graduates unemployed.
- Rural urban migration. Due to rural-urban wage gap and other push and pull factors, most people migrate from rural areas to urban centers primarily in search of better wage employment opportunities which are not always available in urban centers. Since the rate of rural to urban migration is higher than the rate of urban employment creation, many migrants from rural areas become unemployed in urban centers.
- Use of inappropriate technology: Use of capital intensive production technique by some industries reduces the demand for labour hence unemployment.
- Discrimination and sectarianism in labour market. This is based on tribes, gender, religion, political ideologies and many other socio- economic factors. This leaves some members of the society unemployed due to 1ack of connections.
- Seasonal variations in economic activity. This is brought about by climatic changes especially in the agricultural sector leading to seasonal unemployment,
- The IMF structural adjustment programs. Policies like privatization, retrenchment of civil servants and demobilization of soldiers aimed at reducing the number of government employees as a way of reducing government expenditure. This leads to short run unemployment,
- Lack of information regarding the presence of jobs in the labour market. This leads to frictional unemployment.
- Existence of political instabilities in developing countries. Political insecurity destroys productive infrastructures and distorts production activities. This greatly discourages both domestic and foreign investment hence unemployment.
- Lack of serious manpower planning by the government. Governments do not effectively relate training in higher institutions of learning with the available employment opportunities. Consequently, more labour force is produced for certain professions than the country’s ability to absorb the trainees. This results into surplus labour supply for certain professions hence unemployment.
- Excessive use of foreign expatriates at the expense of the local labour. This is common in foreign funded projects, NGO’s and in businesses owned by foreigners. This leads to unemployment of the local labour force.
- Deficiencies in demand for some products. This forces some industries to layoff some workers hence unemployment. For example the coffee industry.
- Poor infrastructural facilities. This is in form of poor road network, poor communication facilities etc. which lead to low levels of investments hence unemployment.
- High levels of inflation in the economy. This increases the costs of production which discourages both domestic and foreign investment hence unemployment.
- Existence of natural disabilities in form of physical and mental handicaps leading to residual unemployment.
- The poor land tenure system. Land tenure system refers to the rights regarding ownership and use of land in the economy. Some people have plenty of land which is under-utilized while others do not have land at all and therefore they remain unemployed.
- High levels of poverty. Most people earn low incomes and therefore this leads to low aggregate demand. This discourages investments hence low levels of economic growth and employment.
CATEGORIES Economics
TAGS Dr. Bbosa Science
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