Graduated? These figures show you’ll struggle to find a proper job

If you are a graduate fresh from university and you are looking for a job in Uganda, you are in a hopelessly difficult situation. 

Of course, this does not apply to every graduate. Some people get hired as soon as they graduate. 

Some have had internships that have turned into jobs, so they are graduating with no employment worries.

But those are the lucky few. The rest are going to have to cling to hopeless hope. In other words, they will continue hoping they will find work when they have almost zero chance of getting hired. 

Those looking for jobs in bustling, crowded Kampala have higher chances of getting hit by a reckless boda-boda man than landing a paid job.

Here is why it is going to be very difficult for fresh graduates to find work. Figures about young Ugandans entering the job market strongly suggest labour supply is consistently outstripping demand. Supply is surging like a tidal wave, but demand is negligible.

Uganda has no fewer than 45 universities. 

For the past five years, Makerere University alone, the leading and oldest university, has added at least 10,000 undergraduates onto the job market each year. (It is important to look at undergraduates separately because the vast majority graduate with no jobs unlike individuals with advanced degrees.)

If you add undergraduates from other well-established universities such as Busitema University, Gulu University, Islamic University in Uganda, Kabale University, Kyambogo University, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Ndejje University, Nkumba University, Uganda Christian University and Uganda Martyrs University, you will be dealing with tens of thousands of job seekers.

But these are undergraduates from just 11 universities (including Makerere) out of a total of nearly 50 universities. If you take into consideration undergraduates from all the universities and individuals graduating from vocational colleges, you will have a shockingly unmanageable number of job seekers.

Although figures from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics put the national unemployment rate at just 4.28 percent — youth unemployment is at 6.5 percent — organisations advertising jobs often get an avalanche of applications. 

In May 2023, for example, 218 positions advertised by the government attracted a staggering 34,820 applicants. 

That means many Ugandans are desperate for work. It also means figures about jobs created — which President Museveni boastfully talks about in his TV addresses to the nation — are a drop in the ocean.

Young graduates looking for work are often advised to create their own jobs. But government officials and civil servants giving this kind of advice do not work for themselves. Even if they created their own jobs, they would still hire people to work for them.

Job seekers facing the spectre of long-term unemployment in a country with zero capacity to provide unemployment benefits obviously need help. But how can they be assisted?

Uganda should follow Kenya’s example. Kenya, like Uganda, is grappling with unemployment, and it is nearly 40 percent for 18 to 34-year-olds, according to the BBC. 

To try to fix the problem, Kenya’s president, William Ruto, has made trips overseas to find jobs for Kenyans. Last October, he announced he had secured up to 350,000 jobs in Saudi Arabia, 2,500 of which are skilled positions.

If we managed to get, for example, 15 countries each giving Ugandans a comparable number of jobs, we would go a long way in tackling unemployment. There would still be unemployed Ugandans, of course, but they would not be too many. 

As things stand, we have an embarrassing situation where unemployed graduates are supported financially by employed school dropouts.

Mr Musaazi Namiti is a journalist and former Al Jazeera digital editor in charge of the Africa desk
[email protected] @kazbuk