Expectations for employment creation

Chris Chenga Open Economy
A few weeks ago, an esteemed writer in The Herald, Nathaniel Manheru, opened dialogue around a perceived dependence by graduates on Government to create jobs. The writer bemoaned how today’s graduates hold onto a misguided over-expectation of jobs from Government, and are failing to engage themselves in a manner that capitalises on the socio-economic trajectory of the country.

To an extent, the writer’s premise is correct, even though the accuracy of his presented argument downplays how the nuance of context has misled these graduates. Put simply, graduates should not expect jobs from Government — conceding those of civil service. However, graduates are entitled to expect a broad macro-environment where enabled industrialists create jobs for them.

To the writer’s credit, our graduates themselves have hardly shown any cognisance of this nuance, and in many cases exude apathetic ignorance in demanding jobs from Government.

They often do not show any awareness of the distinct nature in which Government is meant to create a broad macro-economic environment that enables employment-creation. Instead, our graduates usually rely on superficial rhetoric which does give an impression of intellectual lethargy amongst them.

In observing many of their social media exchanges and listening to chants at demonstrations, it seems our graduates are capped without sufficient appreciation of political economy, geo-politics, and industrial evolution.

Concededly, these may not be subjects of natural interest to many, however, as trends worldwide show, graduates groomed to be of any worthwhile socio-economic utility must be informed on these subject matters; for self and for the respective macro-economy they hope to contribute towards.

Firstly, industrial evolution does not warrant the level of entitlement still retained by many graduates.

In 2016, it is ill-conceived to expect a readily waiting professional job based on academic qualification alone!

Technology has significantly decreased the value proposition of many professions, let alone for graduates who have just shown an ability to grasp theory.

For instance, an accounting, hospitality, or mechanical engineering degree does not possess recent graduates with the same value proposition as it once did a few decades ago.

Thus, on their own competence, there is not enough justification for a graduate from our tertiary institutions to confidently march onto the streets and demand a job.

Many graduates really have no industrial justification in terms of skill contribution to demand jobs.

They have no desirable value propositions to offer the economy.

In a global competitiveness context, the unemployment rate for recent graduates in developed economies (North America and Europe) within two years after graduation is near 50 percent, thus even though the African youth unemployment crisis is disconcerting, based on global industrial competitiveness, relative economic capacity implies that Africa’s unemployment figure for recent graduates should actually be higher.

We do not have the economic structural capacity to assimilate a job seeker with mere theoretical understanding.

For example, mechanical engineering graduates in the United States are likely to be unemployed in the first year after graduation, yet their skill set due to proximity and exposure is closer to those demanded by the world’s leading auto and capital equipment maker, Caterpillar.

It is ambitious then for a mechanical engineering graduate with only theoretical understanding from the University of Zimbabwe to expect quality employment from a mere auto assembler like Willowvale. Any graduate informed on technology’s influence on jobs as they relate to industrial evolution should be humble enough to understand the shrinking opportunities for employment straight after university, and then conduct a self-assessment of whether their own worth justify their demands.

In terms of political economy, a country’s workforce in any generation should be informed on where along a nation’s socio-economic trajectory it finds itself.

The workforce of today is looking to function in a time where skilled professionals and craftsmen are not the first priority; instead they are secondary to the expedient emergence of a new class of indigenous industrialists who should provide capacity for professional and craftsmen assimilation into quality employment.

For instance, graduates in Zimbabwe 20 years ago were justified to demand jobs soon after graduating because there was a substantial base of industrialists to assimilate new entrants into the economy.

However, this industrial base was disproportionately leveraged on foreign ownership and control.

Our chosen national ideology crafted a destiny in which this industrial imbalance was meant to be restructured.

Today, of greater priority than to satisfy a recent graduate’s yearning for employment is the expedient emergence of new indigenous industrialists.

Thus, graduates are misfiring by voicing their concerns to Government for jobs. Instead, graduates should be deliberating amongst themselves why so few are committed, or at least succeeding at becoming the industrialists who will provide wider employment to their peers?

Only after such deliberations and precise identification on how the broad economy may not be conducive for new industrialists can concerns then be advanced to Government.

This integrates well into geo-politics.

It seems many graduates are not adequately appreciative of the geo-politics that influence their potential for employment creation. Our previously mentioned national ideology inherently contests foreign interests, and it is in policies such as land reform and indigenisation that quality employment will eventually arise.

Unfortunately, quite often the youth demographic, particularly the academic graduates, fail to trace the direction intended by these policies and as such these policies do not receive adequate academic application and engagement by the very indigenous youth demographic which stands to benefit from them.

For instance, earlier this year, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr John Mangudya stipulated a 15 percent quota for banking sector lending to be targeted towards youth and women initiatives.

Various youth organisations that are driven largely by well-educated youth and graduates have not laboured to craft structures that would best utilise these facilities.

Regrettably, it is often the well-educated youth and graduates that are dismissive of these empowerment policies, often in interpretation of their perceived conflict with foreign interests.

More precisely, our educated youth and graduates utilise their intellectual capacity only as far as it obediently conforms to foreign discipline.

Ironically, it is through the intellectual equity of youths and graduates that these empowerment policies will manifest an environment of quality employment creation.

This is as far as I go in agreement with the aforementioned writer.

Indeed, by discounting industrial evolution, Zimbabwean graduates are culpable of an over-extended expectation of jobs, and due to a lack of understanding of political economy and geo-politics, graduates are letting themselves down by failing to understand the national socio-economic trajectory of today.

However, I disagree with the writer in that he downplayed Government’s shortcomings.

While industrial evolution has superceded the demand for new graduates, Government’s education policy has been slow to groom a realisation that while in school, students must take it upon themselves to acquire skill sets that surpass theoretical merit alone.

Indeed, it is Government’s paternalism that has sheltered many graduates from the economic reality that a workforce is only as relevant as technology necessitates its skill sets and economic capacity assimilates labour.

We live in an increasingly capitalist world where attractive socialist rhetoric coddles emotional insecurity but creates misguided workforce expectations. Likewise, it is Government’s manner of public dissemination that informs a nation’s intended socio-economic trajectory.

It is how Government conveys political ideology to ultimately win the public persuasion which motivates its workforce to complement the desired trajectory.