We publish a new contribution by Samir Am on the dire economic situation that affects his country, especially its workers and poor.
Unemployment appears to have reached 13.7% of the active population in 2020 according to statistics by the African Development Bank. The IMF forecasts an unemployment rate of 14.9% for the year 2022. This increase in unemployment affects all categories of executives (31%), qualified personnel (29%) and the 250,000 workers with a university degree who join the labor market each year.
Numbers in doubt
However, these numbers are questionable, in particular because of the current definition of the International Labor Office (ILO), which does not count as unemployed those who have an activity of a few hours in the month. Precariousness and unemployment are increasing in spectacular proportions.
Based on the August 2021 statistics from the National Employment Agency (ANEM), we observed a considerable gap between the number of job offers and the placements made (28,455 offers were registered, of which only 23,046 placements were made during August and 169,879 placements were made since January 2021, out of 1,161,986 applications). The average placement does not exceed 30,000 per month.
Social catastrophe
However, the astronomical gap between the number of job seekers registered in the ANEM and the number of jobs offered is a serious indicator of the prevailing social catastrophe: a consequence of the policies of liquidation of the national public and private industrial structure carried out by the different governments, and the cessation of hiring in civil service. These figures are just the tip of the iceberg, as they only represent the unemployed that have registered with the National Employment Agency (ANEM). The numbers speak for themselves.
The alarm must sound
All these magic potions do not end unemployment and its consequences, namely expiration. Also, in 2021, the unemployment subsidy (13,000 Da) was created, presented as a beautiful social work. We can never quote enough the words of Jaurès rebelling against all those beautiful souls who always seek to substitute “the certainty of the law for the arbitrariness of the hand out.”
The youth demand work
Priority to employment! Priority to employment!, proclaims the Algerian youth. Inexorably, precariousness, underemployment and unemployment are on the rise. A list of all the measures, decrees, laws, ordinances, emergency plan implemented in recent years should be prepared. Wouldn’t a report on measuring the impact of government policies be feasible?
Misery under the IMF and the World Bank
Privatization policies spare no sector of activity, no region of the country. The deindustrialization of the country dates back to 1988 when the Algerian economy was placed in the hands of specialists from the IMF and the World Bank (the jewels of the national industry were privatized). As an indication, in 1998, the number of unemployed was estimated at more than 2.3 million people, or 29.2% of the active population, but also reductions in workforce and liquidation of companies.
For genuine employment
Measures based on employment aid formulas (social safety net, fixed-term contract, etc.) continue to gain importance compared to permanent jobs. Millions of Algerians are mired in misery.
To fight against unemployment is to put an end to the industrial desertification policy dictated from the outside with its dramatic consequences on employment. It means creating permanent jobs and not more and more poverty by forcing citizens to survive with a salary that gives them the illusion of not being forgotten, in terms of wealth distribution.