Zanzibar — THE Zanzibar government has vowed to seriously address unemployment as the rate jumped to 19.6 percent last year from 14.3 percent in 2014.
The authorities said it was a devastating report driving them to take serious measures to address.
"Unemployment is a global problem, but let us focus on workable measures that will ensure our young people are employed," Mr Mudrik Ramadhan Soraga- State Minister, President's Office- Labour, Economy and Investments said when he officiated the launch of the 2020/2021 Integrated labour Force survey results for Zanzibar.
He said the results from the survey, displayed yesterday at Madinat al Bahri, show that unemployment rate among young people has reached 27.4 percent for the year 2020/21, and that unemployment rate for young women is higher (40.6 percent) compared to young men (15.4 percent)
According to the results, the Unguja West Urban Region leads by having an increase in unemployment by 26.6 per cent in the year 2020/21 from 23.1 per cent in 2014 while in Unguja South Unguja and South Pemba Regions, the problem of unemployment has drastically increased.
"In Unguja South, unemployment increased by 12.5 in 2020/21 compared to 3.9 percent in 2014, and in south Pemba, unemployment has increased from 6.9 percent in 2014 to 14.0 percent in 2020/21," he said, adding that the informal sector has continued to do better as the number of people engaged in this sector has increased to 41.7 percent from 37.7 percent in 2014.
The growth of employment in the informal sector has resulted from the government improving the environment for people to be self-employed, including empowering small entrepreneurs by reducing taxes and providing them with places to carry out their economic activities.
He said having an enabling environment to access loans by groups of young people, women and people with disabilities are other ways the government has been using to battle the unemployment burden and that the survey report will help in planning on how to create jobs.
The Minister thanked both Union and Zanzibar governments with support from development partners led by the World Bank and the UN- International Labour Organisation (ILO) for seeing the importance of conducting the Survey for the year 2020/21.
He said the results of this study will help the government and other stakeholders to understand the real situation of the labor market in the country, monitor and evaluate the implementation of various programs and policies to promote employment and reduce poverty.
He added that it is also important in the implementation of Zanzibar's Development Vision Zanzibar 2050; The Third, Five-Year Zanzibar National Development Plan (ZADEP); Revitalizing Employment Policies; Developing Employment Promotion Strategies along with Skills Development Programms.
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The survey finding also helps implementation of the regional and international development agenda, including East African Community (EAC), the African Union (AU 2063) agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Mr Adame Traore from the ILO country office in Dar es Salaam commended the Union and Zanzibar government leaders for taking efforts in finding solutions to unemployment.
"ILO's continued support to the governments will generate, analyse and use labour market statistics that will inform the development and evaluation of visionary policies, plans and programs towards achieving decent work."
