Despite good growth, Botswana has a relatively high unemployment rate. Professor Happy Siphambe, University of Botswana economics don, speaking at a workshop on decent work, said that the overall emphasis for employment creation in Botswana is to shift employment to the private sector.

He expects the private sector to lead growth and investment, economic diversification and export growth.

He said unemployment exists because the main sector driving growth has less impact in terms of employment. Mining, he said, employs only three percent of the labour force.

Agriculture has been the main employer even though it has the lowest average earnings and low productivity, professor Siphamphe said.

"Unemployment is currently estimated at 17.6 percent which even though it declined from 21.5 percent for 1995/96, is still high. Unemployment decreased to 31.6 percent. The most affected are the youth, women and those with lower levels of education at the level of Junior Certificate" he said.

Some of the unemployed, according to Siphambe, now have tertiary and vocational education triggering a mismatch between supply and demand for skills. Underemployment is also prevalent, he said, at 8.3 percent of the currently employed labour force.

He said there is evidence of child labour even though minimal, with most of the working children engaged in agriculture.

He observed that child labour may be exacerbated by HIV/AIDS, which has left many children orphaned or in the care of old grandmothers.

"Like most countries, Botswana has a growing informal sector, which is dominated by women. The sector is neglected from a policy point of view and has been subject to constant harassment and yet it is an important source of livelihood for those who cannot secure jobs in the formal sector," he said.

Employment creation, Siphambe said, can be achieved through fostering the expansion of a competitive industrial base facilitating the creation of the service and small scale industries to support the competitive export sector.

In terms of social policy, the idea has been to provide access to social infrastructure like schools, hospitals, roads, water and electricity, he said.

"So far many achievements have been made in these areas as is evident from the high levels of literacy rates, low fertility and mortality rates. Major reversals have however, been experienced in the health sector due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic," he said.