In the president’s letter on August 22, to the ‘Bazukulu’ Museveni said, the biggest challenge the youth are faced with is unemployment, this resonates with findings released by Twaweza in a research brief titled, ‘We the people presenting data on Ugandans’ livelihoods’.
In brief, majority of Ugandans name unemployment as one of the three most pressing challenges in the country. 78 per cent of the citizens feel that the government is doing a bad job at creating employment and 33 per cent are unemployed.
In the same letter, the president lists projects that government has set up to create employment in various parts of the country and what should be done to improve Ugandans livelihoods.
However, a clear majority, 81 per cent of Ugandans feel the government is not doing a good job of keeping the price of essential goods down, leading to inflation. Similar numbers feel the government is not doing well at creating jobs (78 per cent) and 79 per cent say government is poor at fighting corruption.
The lack of job opportunities is also cited by a third of the citizens (35 per cent), as are poor access to clean water (31 per cent), poor quality of education (19 per cent) and poor transport services (19 per cent).
Inflation and the high cost of living is cited by four in ten (38 per cent) and lack of jobs by one in three (33 per cent). Six in ten citizens (59 percent) cite poor health services as one of the top three problems facing Uganda today, more than for any other issue.
These figures are prepared after a survey by Sauti za Wananchi, a panel which provides decision-makers with key data and insights from the perspective of citizens.
The unemployment rate in Uganda is estimated to be around 18 per cent. This is the rate that measures the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force.
The challenge of unemployment in Uganda is more related to the skills mismatch between job requirements and qualifications and this continues to grow over time. More than half of Uganda’s working population is employed in the informal sector.
However, the rate is expected to increase by December this year due to the increase with the number of graduates we get from different universities each year.
But what is the status of the projects listed by government and how many jobs will be added in 2018? We all know that these projects take time to be implemented and we won’t expect many jobs to be created as the government is always reluctant and slow in implementing projects.