Business
PNG Works On Creating More Jobs
High unemployment worries jobs minister
No one has given Papua New Guinea’s high unemployment rate a real serious thought although many have repeatedly spoken about its wide-ranging impacts on individual lives, communities and the country.
So it is not an exaggeration when Labour and Industrial Relations Minister, Peter O’Neill indicated that “there are fewer people in paid formal employment today than there were 10 years ago”.
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For the record, O’Neill becomes the first Labour and Employment minister to critically take the problem onboard and in his own words described it as a “ terrible record, which must be corrected”.
O’Neill’s statement has been reaffirmed by Bank of Papua New Guinea’s quarterly bulletins for last year.
All the four bulletins carried a general decline in employment rate in all sectors of the economy.
The second quarter bulletin in July 2002, highlighted that the level of employment in the formal private sector, excluding mining and petroleum, decreased by 0.2 percent in the March quarter of 2002.
Employment levels decreased in the wholesale, manufacturing, transportation and finance/business services sectors, while it increased in other sectors.
Employment levels decreased in the Madang/Wewak areas and other outlying regions of the country.
There were slight percentage variations in the following bulletins for the year, including the December 2002 issue.
But in all of them, they pointed towards a general downward trend in the employment rate.
O’Neill is planning a summit on employment to examine ways to bring about a long-term boost in both employment and training for Papua New Guineans.
He said: “This situation is worse given that our population growth is among the highest in the world and is certainly a time bomb waiting to explode.”
O’Neill said he wanted to bring together all stakeholders—employers, unions, training organisations, governments, churches, and youth and community groups—to see whether “common objectives and strategies” could be agreed on to reverse the decline in employment and provide training in both urban and rural communities.
“Our high level of unemployment including unemployment amongst university graduates, college graduates and high school leavers is the root cause of many of our social problems and is contributing to crime and lawlessness in our cities and towns and in rural villages,” he said.
O’Neill said unemployment is also holding back the country’s economic growth because one of the keys to economic growth is rising employment.
He said the government, through the ministries of Labour and Industrial Relations, Foreign Affairs and Immigration and Trade and Industry, has already introduced measures to improve visa, work permits and business approval processes to assist the business and investment community.
“We want the business and investment community to express its confidence in these improvements, and in Papua New Guinea’s future by boosting the employment and training opportunities available for Papua New Guineans, especially our youth,” he said.
“While some training groups including employers, church and community organisations are doing an excellent job, we have gone backwards in the area of training since independence,” he added.
O’Neill said he would list a range of subjects for the Employment Summit to consider, and the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations would begin inviting organisations to attend and make presentations to the summit.
O’Neill was considering inviting an international expert on employment and training issues to also address the summit.
