Jobs: a cornerstone of development _ World Development Report 2013
Taking advantage of its geographic position and
demographic transition, Sri Lanka has significant potential to create
new and improve the quality of jobs:
In developing countries, jobs are a cornerstone of development, with
a payoff far beyond income alone. They are critical for reducing
poverty, making cities work, and providing youth with alternatives to
violence, says the World Banks World Development Report (WDR 2013):
Jobs.
The report stresses the role of strong private sector led growth in
creating jobs and outlines how jobs that do the most for development can
spur a virtuous cycle. The report finds that poverty falls as people
work their way out of hardship and as jobs empower women to invest more
in their children. Efficiency increases as workers get better at what
they do, as more productive jobs appear, and as less productive ones
disappear. Societies flourish as jobs foster diversity and provide
alternatives to conflict.
The report highlights how jobs with the greatest development payoffs
are those that raise incomes, make cities function better, connect the
economy to global markets, protect the environment, and give people a
stake in their societies.
Jesko Hentschel, Co-Author and Deputy Director of the World
Development Report 2013: Jobs will present the main findings of this
World Bank flagship report at the Faculty of Graduate Studies of the
University of Colombo.
One of the biggest challenges facing Sri Lanka is to improve womens
employment opportunities, especially for the young female population he
said. Around the world, we find that more women working come with real
developmental gains much beyond the income they earn from their jobs.
Investment in children rises, more girls and women attend education and
training classes as aspirations increase, and the way decisions in
societies are being made matures. In 2010, only 28 percent of young
women aged 15-24 participated in the labor force in Sri Lanka (compared
to 50 percent of young men). The participation rate among women aged
25-64 in the same year was 43 percent, compared to 90 percent of men in
the same age group.
Social skills are becoming more and more crucial for employers, said
Hentschel. Sri Lanka is an example of a country that needs to improve
employable skills. Different from literacy and numeracy cognitive
skills, we are learning that social skills are often built on the job
itself and most importantly the very first job somebody holds. This is
why the transition from school to work is a crucial period in life said
the Co-Author and Deputy Director of the Report. In 2010, Sri Lanka had
a youth unemployment rate of people between 16 and 24 years of age more
than four times as high than the average unemployment rates one of the
highest of such ratios in the world.
Taking advantage of its geographic position and demographic
transition, Sri Lanka has significant potential to create new -- and
improve the quality of -- jobs. Core to this will be the urbanization
agenda as well as continued access to foreign ideas and technology
through trade and openness these two effects can spur significant
productivity improvement in firms.
Jobs are also core for the social functioning of communities and
societies, the Report argues. Here, the authors draw on an evaluation of
the cash for work program in Sri Lanka that was initially designed to
resettle 100,000 returnees following the conflict that ended in 2009.
It supported over 250,000 returnees and became the largest source of
employment in the immediate aftermath of the conflict. A 36 year old
female returnee, reflecting on her experiences said that this program
helped to bring the community together.
The report processed over 800 surveys and censuses to arrive at its
findings and estimates that worldwide, more than 3 billion people are
working, but nearly half work in farming, small household enterprises,
or in casual or seasonal day labor, where safety nets are modest or
sometimes non-existent and earnings are often meager.
The report advances a three-stage approach:
·First, solid fundamentals including macroeconomic stability, an
enabling business environment, human capital, and the rule of law have
to be in place.
·Second, labor policies should not become an obstacle to job
creation, they should also provide access to voice and social protection
to the most vulnerable.
·Third, governments should identify which jobs would do the most for
development given their specific country context, and remove or offset
obstacles to private sector creation of such jobs.
The report says policy makers should tackle these challenges by
answering such questions as: Should countries build their development
strategies around growth, or should they focus on jobs? Can
entrepreneurship be fostered, especially among micro enterprises in
developing countries, or are entrepreneurs born Are greater investments
in education and training a prerequisite for employability, or can
skills be built through jobs. Amidst crises and structural shifts,
should jobs, not just workers, be protected? |