By: Ludorf Iyambo
As one observes the hope for employment fading from the young and old, the educated and uneducated alike, some of us are left to wonder, when are the jobs coming?
According to data from the Ministry of Labour Industrial Relations and Employment Creation, 3,763 individuals registered as jobseekers in the fourth quarter of 2024. Only 352, which is less than 10%, have secured employment opportunities.
This picture, even though not capturing the jobs created by the unregistered private companies, presents a worrisome trend.
Moreover, it makes one question what the politicians and aspiring politicians say out there.
A dialogue needs to be held because it appears politicians say anything to garner votes, gain access to a good life, and do the bare minimum to create jobs.
We need to assess if our leaders have done enough to create employment opportunities or at least an environment conducive to entrepreneurship.
Namibia is a country with a population of 3.02 million, of which, 881,676 (36.5%) are under 15, and 63.5% are above 15 representing 1.5 million people.
Of these figures, 438,770 (28.6%) represent the economically inactive population, while 1,090,153 (71%) are economically active and 725,742 (66.6%) represent the employed population.
About 47% of the people who went to tertiary education have no jobs and are struggling. So people went through 12 years of schooling plus four years of tertiary education and still, that seems inadequate for them to find rewarding job opportunities.
With the world evolving to automation, this situation could get worse with some of the things that human beings used to do before now done by machines.
Furthermore, with artificial intelligence, the expectations are that certain jobs would be redundant.
There are doctors, nurses, and teachers who cannot find jobs in Namibia even though these jobs are regarded as important, so one will wonder when the promised jobs are coming.
What is the solution then?
As a country, we need to become realistic and stop clapping hands with politicians and those who want power or maintain it without assessing their strategies on the economy.
We need to rewire our minds and assess our skills and the information we consume. Secondly, most of you are living in a big city that is not your home, you need to come back home if there is a piece of land there and go work on it commercially.
Go back home, try to see if there is a skill that you know, and start something new. Read books, watch good documentaries, watch things that build you.
Fix your brain and let it breathe, we need to go back to rural areas and once you are there, the land is cheap, build yourself a mad hut or shack, whatever you can afford, and begin working the land.
Let’s go back to the basics, as I believe there are no jobs coming anytime soon, however, during the rainy season, we work the land for our food and stop relying on groceries to store food that we cannot afford.
Be reminded that in 2024, Namibia will be faced with the challenge of creating between 370,000 and 400,000 jobs within the next seven years to meet the Vision 2030 objective of reducing unemployment.
It is time for us to be more self-reliant and develop a new mindset on economic matters, more importantly, vote for leaders who are presenting solutions to the plight of the various communities.
Ludorf Iyambo is a content creator and journalist. The views expressed herein are his own.
