One in two Ugandans jobless, says minister

One in every two Ugandans in the working age bracket is jobless and every employed citizen on average provides for five dependents, according to excerpts from a government study conducted last year.

Referencing the findings in a speech yesterday, Gender and Labour minister Betty Amongi said only 10 million out of 23.5 million capable Ugandans have a job to do.

And another 1.3 million citizens considered “in employment”, she added, are in reality unemployed and actively seeking jobs.

Working age group comprises citizens aged 14 to 64 years, according to the government’s definition.

Ms Amongi noted that 60 percent of unemployed Ugandans are not actively looking for a job.

The remaining 4.4 million people, according to Mr Alex Asiimwe, the commissioner for Labour in the Ministry of Gender and Labour, belong to “not in education, not in employment and are not being trained”.

He, however, did not elaborate how these latter categories are different from the former two.

In comments at Uganda’s first annual national labour conference held at Serena Kampala Hotel yesterday, minister Amongi said nearly 90 percent of working Ugandans are employed in the informal sector.

“Uganda has a working population of 23.5 million people out of the country’s estimated 45 million people. However, 52 percent of the working age population are outside the labour force,” she said.

The youth dominating the informal sector are “very vulnerable”, according to minister Amongi, due to their working conditions in fields such as welding, carpentry and menial jobs at construction sites.

She said the country needs to create 648,000 jobs annually to match demand.

The National Planning Authority, a government agency, reported four years ago that up to 40,000 graduates are churned onto the job market from universities and tertiary institutions a year, but 90,000 out of a cumulative 700,000 graduates get “something to do”.

Officiating at yesterday’s event, First Deputy Prime Minister Rebecca Kadaga did not directly comment on the high rate of unemployment in Uganda, but called for better work ethic even among the employed. 

She rebuked employees who spend substantial working hours to chat on social media instead of delivering on that they are employed to do.

“We should assess if we meet the standards as required by our moral ethics at work, she said, “One of the major contributors to unemployment is poor culture and ethics due to a big number of untrained, unemployed and uneducated youth in the country.”

She added: “There`s a high level of theft of time in spaces of work, a lot of company time is spent on social media. A worker will come in the morning and start with [logging onto] Facebook, go to Twitter and Instagram [micro-blogging sites].”

[email protected]