ALLOW me to express my views on the traumatising issue of unemployment in Namibia. I know there is always a solution to any problem, and I believe that we as a nation are able to fight all the problems that are disconcerting our nation such as education and unemployment. My main concern is on what are we as a nation doing to fight unemployment? What is the government doing to keep its nation off the streets? Are our policies and laws hampering our progress? As far as I know, our ministries, the Namibian nation, needs to go back to the table and try and see where the problem lies and try to find solution. I bet the solution lies at the tip of the pen.
Ignoring these things and hoping one day the solution will fall from heaven will just lead us to being a failed nation. This whole unemployment issue is hitting the youth of Namibia, and many choose the alternative of earning an income by going into crime.I would like to make suggestions to our youth council as well as to our line ministries (especially Youth and Education) as to how we can tackle head-on the issue of unemployment in the country.If you look closely the link between the Ministries of Education and Youth, there is an on-going gap. How many students are graduating each year from our tertiary institution as well as well as our vocational training centres and colleges? What exactly happens to these students: are they employed in their relevant fields or do they just sit at home with their degrees and diplomas? And what is our government doing to help them?I would like to applaud Dr Abraham Iyambo for thinking out of the box to establish Human Resources in his ministry. This is the key to any organisation and I would like to suggest to our youth council to also establish a human resource department to cater the needs for all the youths nationwide. This can improve the method of accumulation and dissemination of information on available jobs in which job centres have nationwide, integrated databases of jobs, employers, and available employees. This type of database could reduce the time spent by an average worker on the unemployment roll.Thumbs up to the Ministry of Education for putting more emphasis on improvements to education and training provided to young people, with a greater focus on vocational skills. Our youth council should meet the ministry of education half-way by passing on the message during the conferences and seminars. I suggest also these conferences to be done more often for some youth to know the existence of the youth council.Our government should also look on its policies that affect the labour market, for example, reduced migration. Government should also try and create demand in our economy by:Supporting struggling industries in the private sector in order to save jobs;Providing more training and education to the unemployed, so they become more confident and employable; Create small and big projects specifically for the youth; Strongly promote SME’s for the youth to be able to create their own companies;Putting the Black Economic Empowerment to use, especially when it also comes to awarding tenders, so smaller local companies can acquire experience; and Cutting interest rates to encourage spending.The other issue that contributes to unemployment is the progress in technology, don’t get me wrong, technological progress is good and makes life easier, but my point would be the optimisation of technology in relation with labour demand. I know it’s a business principle to cut labour costs to maximize profit but it is inhuman to replace a human with a machine. If hiring people means higher costs for employee benefits, corresponding laws would have to be changed to balance the technology growth in industry with labour demand.Job ‘Swagger’ MatheusKatutura, WindhoekNote: This letter has been shortened – Ed
