More Jobs Wanted
ONE of the most glaring problems facing the country is undoubtedly the lack
of employment opportunities for the growing mass of people. In absence of a robust
economic growth, Nepal’s employment market offers very few openings. The spectacle of
hundreds of applications for one clerical job or some other support staff position at a
government or a private company illustrates in a way the unemployment crunch the nation is
facing. Those who have stopped studying after going through a certain level of education
have to try their luck very hard at the job market, most often in vain. Those who fail to
get through the iron gate of School Leaving Certificate examinations come out in tens of
thousands every year to also try their luck in the employment market, which is extremely
limited. As the creation of job opportunities has not kept pace with the production of the
educated or semi-educated coming out of schools and colleges, every year more and more
numbers are added to the mass of unemployed youth in the country. What such idle hands and
minds imply in terms of lack of income and a dignified livelihood is easy to imagine.
Frustrations are natural in those who have tried for years to have a reasonably gainful
employment. It is not without reason that a big unemployment problem is regarded like a
social time bomb that is waiting to explode. Lack of employment results in social crimes
and strife.
Against the above backdrop, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s
describing the unemployment as a problem bigger than poverty is definitely worth serious
thinking. Unemployment breeds poverty. Poverty alleviation would be an easier task to
handle, if there were enough employment opportunities around. Taking part in a discussion
on the concept paper on the 10th development plan (2059/60-063/64) at the National
Planning Commission secretariat Wednesday, Mr. Deuba asked the NPC to pay special
attention to the issue of employment. He went so far as to say that NPC should keep a
ten-year time perspective to resolve the unemployment problem. His emphasis on making a
dent on the unemployment problem is understandable, as he correlated this problem to the
Maoist problem, which has fed on the frustrations of unemployed rural youth. One of the
expected thrusts of the tenth five-year plan is providing employment opportunities to the
people by utilisation of the means and resources available in the country, especially to
the people from the backward, underprivileged and ethnic communities. There is no
gainsaying that the tenth plan document has to be bold and concrete in terms of its
emphasis on generating employment opportunities.
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