3D jobs - a core issue of unemployment

B.H.S. Suraweera

Employment: In many countries, there are two major issues related to employment; high unemployment among the youth and unfilled vacancies in the labour market. Most of these vacant jobs are categorized as blue collar jobs which are not attractive to the youth in spite of their unemployment.

On the contrary, youth are queuing up for white collar jobs. All parents try their best to lead their children through numerous educational paths to find white collar jobs. Many industries, such as the construction and garment industry, are affected by this problem. This problem is usually defined as an attitudinal problem of society.

Further, this is a problem for the vocational training institutions too. Many Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) courses which are producing skilled craftsmen have failed to attract youth in sufficient numbers to follow their courses.

Though TVET Institutions have launched very intensive career guidance programmes to attract youths to the vocational training programmes, situation has not improved very much. This problem in TVET institutions cannot solely be attributed to their inefficiencies because some of their courses are in high demand among the youth without any effective advertising campaign.

Recently I had a study tour in the South Korea to study their TVET system. They use different names for our so called blue collar job. They call them 3 D jobs, which mean Dirty, Difficult and Dangerous jobs.

There, I and my colleagues in the National Apprentice and Industrial Training Authority spent a day with a group of migrant workers from Karandeniya, my native village. They told us that majority of migrant workers are doing 3D jobs in Korea. From them only I first came to know about Korean labour market jargon which I got clarified later on from my Korean counterparts.

Here 3 Ds are the reasons for categorization of certain jobs as blue collar jobs. Nobody wants to engage in dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs. No parent likes to send their children too dirty, difficult and dangerous environment.

Labour markets of all countries, both developed and developing have plenty of 3 D jobs. In my opinion, all labour markets have a 3D range of jobs and it expands with the increase of per capita income.

In our country, jobs which were in demand in 70s when per capita income was about US $300 are no longer in demand because majority of people do not want to engage in certain jobs with present living standards with above US $ 1000 per capita income. In developed countries such as UK and USA with their very high living standards and per capita income, labour markets have very wide range of 3D jobs.

Certain jobs which are very lucrative in developing countries have become 3D jobs in developed countries.

Developed countries could fill their vacancies in 3D jobs from migrant workers from developing countries due to higher salary structures in developed countries. But filling 3 D job vacancies in developing countries like ours is a critical problem. Present generation of youth is not taking up 3 D jobs and skilled craftsmen already in 3 D jobs are migrating to the developed countries for higher salries.

There is a positive side in labour migration. Youth are attracted to certain 3 D jobs due to foreign employment opportunities and they serve in 3 D jobs for some time until they acquire sufficient experience for migration. TVET institutions are frequently criticized for not training sufficient numbers of skilled craftsmen.

In spite of the inherent inefficiencies in public sector, TVET institutions try their best to attract school leavers for their crafts level courses. They always show them the carrot of foreign employment.

Due to the intensive campaigns, some school leavers choose these courses, but not to the full capacity or not in sufficient numbers.

In my opinion, this is a problem in the industry. Different industry sectors should maintain attractiveness of their occupations especially craft level occupations. This needs removal of 3 D dimensions in craft level occupations.

* Dirtiness could be removed by maintaining a clean environment and providing appropriate clothing.

* Difficulties and heavy muscle stresses could be reduced by using appropriate equipment and adopting appropriate practices.

* Danger in employment could be reduced by following good safety practices.

Many industrialists are not very conscious about these requirements. For example, when a commercial advertisement in TV has roles of skilled craftsmen, it usually displays the 3 D dimensions in the job. Those advertisements may create attraction to the product brands but it is a distraction for youth to join those occupations.

Though 3 Ds are used in international jargon, in the Sri Lankan context, there is another D; that is Dignity. Dignity is a social perception. When a low dignity level is attributed to an employment, it is very difficult to attract people for employment.

For example, consider industrial sewing machine operator or Juki machine operator. It is practised in a very clean environment. It is not dangerous either. Except for mental stresses in repetitive works, no heavy muscle stresses involved and hence it is not a difficult job. But youth are not attracted to this occupation.

In my opinion, it is because social perception on deteriorated dignity of the job. I took this example to explain the problem with good intention; in my personal opinion it is a dignified job.

Further there is a technical dimension in the dignity of the job. In the past, most of the occupations consisted of very wide range of competencies. As a result of technological advancement and the introduction of scientific management principles, many production processes were automated.

These developments were aimed at improving the productivity but it fragmented many occupations into a numbers of trivial jobs with a narrow range of competencies. For example, tailor needs a wider range of competencies to cut and sew a complete dress to measurements. Now it is done in a production line by a number of industrial sewing machine operators.

In automated environment and line production environment, skills needs of majority of jobs are limited only to manual skills. Their cognitive skills requirements are reduced to minimal. Even in advanced technical environment, knowledge requirement has limited only to habitual knowledge but no opportunity for the workers to apply their creative cognitive skills.

(The above thoughts are the writer's personal ideas and they are not necessarily the official stand of the Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission.)

(The writer is Deputy Director General Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission)