Creating jobs and building economies through strategic employment policies

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Creating jobs and building economies through
strategic employment policies

• Foluso Phillips
• Phillips Consulting

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My Agenda
Some Current Realities
Objectives of national employment policies
Who should formulate polices on employment?
Performance indicators on employment issues
Formulating an employment policy
Concept of National Competencies
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Some Current Realities
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AFRICA
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Some Current Realities

• Public sector is largest employer will continue
  to be so
• Africas Social security
• Largest budget and spender.
• Private sector is challenged in Africa
• New employment will come from entrepreneurship,
  SMEs, cooperatives etc
• Brain drain is real and valuable
• Self employment is a strong strategy for economic
  emancipation.

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Some Current Realities

• Higher enterprise creation will increase level of
  employment
• The cost and process for enterprise creation is
  still tedious
• There are no large corporates for SMEs to support
• FDI will only happen through macro economic
  stability.

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Objectives of national employment policies
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Employment Policies
Labour Market
Economic Environment
Promoting trade and investment for productive
employment Promoting technology for higher
productivity and job creation Promoting
sustainable development for equitable
livelihood Macro-economic policy integration
Employment through entrepreneurship Improving
knowledge and skills Active labour market
policies Job protection through wider skills
self employment Reconciling supply demand
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Objectives of National Employment Policies

• An understanding of employment demographics
• Knowledge of the labour supply demand equation
  nationally by sector
• An understanding of the elements which influence
  the economic environment gainful employment
• Level of trade, economic activity investment
• Level and type of imports
• Market access of local output
• Policy integration growth employment.

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Objectives of National Employment Policies

• Influence education training
• Skills available required and lead time for
  production
• Increase local labour content.
• Anticipatory capabilities
• Predict demand for specific labour skills
• Encourage DFI through availability of value for
  money labour

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Objectives of National Employment Policies

• Sustainable development
• Fundamental rights at work
• Work place health safety
• HIV/AIDS
• Remuneration and reward structures
• Private Public sectors
• Ensuring equity and competitiveness
• Value for money labour provision.

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Who should formulate polices on employment?
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Who Should Formulate Employment Policies?

• Government ministries
• Labour productivity
• Commerce Industry
• State governments
• The Labour unions
• International, national sector
• Educational technical institutions the youths
• Employers of labour
• Public private.
• Employment agencies consultants

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Performance indicators on employment issues
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Possible Performance Indicators?

• Unemployment data sector region
• Employed data sector region
• Vacancies not filled due to absence of skills
• Foreign labour (skills or policy gap)
• Professional, technical and other graduates in
  the pipeline (labour production capacity)
• Types of graduates who fail to get jobs
• Training development capacity
• Social unrest and crime.

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Strategy for formulating an employment policy
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What Supports Policy Formulation?

• Clear understanding national economic and social
  goals
• Monitoring benchmarking global trends in
  commerce, industry trade
• Extensive data collection and interpretation
• Constant communication and interaction with the
  various stakeholders
• Manpower forecasts national, regional and
  Sectoral
• Education what should we be teaching our
  children today for tomorrow
• Legislative process to enact policies critical to
  overall economic development.

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The Concept of National Competencies
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The Concept of National Competencies

• Competencies relate to the knowledge, skills and
  attitude required to successfully carry out a
  particular role or service
• Competencies exist at a national, corporate and
  individual level
• National competencies usually revolve around a
  countrys natural resources
• Corporate and individual competencies enhance and
  support the national competency
• National Competencies help to secure comparative
  advantage

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National Competencies

• Norway
• Fishing, shipbuilding, oil rig platforms, fishing
  equipment etc
• Canada
• Mining, mining equipment, technology and
  management
• USA
• Technology applied to everything
• Japan
• No resources efficiency, discipline and quality
• S. Africa
• Mining, Tourism, hospitality, sports,
  entertainment
• India
• Emerging intellectual competencies in IT

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Nigerias competencies case study

• Agriculture?
• Peanuts, cocoa, rubber, cotton, palm oil, hides
  skins
• 85 of population
• Agricultural research institutes
• Agriculture taught in schools
• Tough to get into varsity to study Agric
• Mastered transportation logistics to ports
• Financing through regional banks
• Regional competencies
• Industries began to emerge (Unilever, Cadbury,
  UAC etc).

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What happened? Oil Happened

• Oil created opportunity for another competency
  but
• Low people input high financial output
• No strategic focus on developing oil related
  competencies
• Very little ripple effect, little national
  engagement
• No evolving national technical organisational
  competency in oil production
• Successive governments failed to invest oil
  proceeds
• Expand agriculture (the competency)
• Horizontal or vertical integration (factories
  services)
• The Infrastructure to support its growth
• Reducing opportunity for private sector
  engagement.

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National Competencies in Africa

• Ghana agriculture? Cocoa
• Uganda agriculture? Coffee
• DRC potential competency in hydro
• Franco phone countries strong attachment to
  France
• Gambia tourism
• Botswana mining
• Lesotho hydro, agriculture
• Etc.

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Integrative Policies

• Beneficiation strategy
• Gold diamonds to jewellery
• Cocoa to chocolates
• Crude Oil to petroleum products
• Rubber to tyres
• Focussed integration strategy
• Building industries and not companies
• Full participation in the production value chain
• SMEs must feed industry
• Where are the industries?

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Employment Policies
Labour Market
Economic Environment
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The principle economic goal of any nation is to
produce a high and rising standard of living for
its citizens by gainfully employing them
Michael Porter
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Developing the skills, knowledge capabilities
of your people in areas of clear national
comparative advantage should be the focus of
employment polices and strategies in Africa
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Thank You!

• Foluso Phillips