Skill focused training can fix youth unemployment

LAHORE: World Bank states there are 8.6 million unemployed youth aged 15-24 year in Pakistan; this is a major economic and social challenge for our planners. Still vacancies exist in the country at entry-level positions but the available youth lack qualifications.

The vacancies for skilled jobs run in millions according to industry experts most of them in the garmenting sector of textiles. The skill imparting technical and vocational institutes are rolling out around half million low skilled workers. Out of these only 30 percent get jobs in formal sector and 35-40 percent are either self employed earning very low income or are absorbed at low salaries in the informal sector.

Skills that guarantee 100 percent employability are either not imparted although all those that pass out are readily employed. Still government run skill training institutes prefer skill training where they could produce large number of workers irrespective of the fact that they get decent job or not.

Most of the youth employed in the informal sector does not does not have positive economic or life trajectory. The employers in the formal sector complain that they face lack of talent in our youth even for entry level jobs. Even among the educated youth education system in Pakistan has not enabled students to actually develop trade skills.

Pakistan’s apparel sector at numerous times had to refuse orders because they lack the capability to produce the required quantity. “We can increase the number of machines in short time but we lack skilled workers” said knitwear exporter M I Khurram. Apparel production is labor intensive and demand for skilled stitching experts’ supervisors is very high but the vocational and technical institutes in Pakistan hardly provide two percent of the requirement of garmenting industry. Export opportunities worth billions of dollars are wasted every year because of skill shortages. Similar shortages are felt by the leather industry and the automobile sector.

Social sector experts say that the best social-welfare program in the world is a job. The ability to have income and to have the freedom that comes with that is core to being able to build thriving societies.

The planners will have to focus on middle-skill jobs that where the skills are scarce.  These are the skill that employers care about. It would be ideal if employers build relationship with educational institutes but they rarely do so because they are not ready to put their own resources against that. Even where the state or an NGO provides required skill training, the disconnected youth has to be lured through social-support services like transportation allowance, stipend and for ladies access to child care. If they are denied these they would not be able to participate in extensive full time training.

It is very important when training in middle level jobs is imparted, one should select the skill where pre-confirm vacancies are available with several employers. It should not end up just a training push. The trainee should be inducted with a very clear understanding that once they pass out successfully there is a job waiting for them on the other side. Middle level jobs pull people out of poverty. Numerous such jobs are lying vacant in Pakistan and any sensible planners could design required programs. The planners should device programs with mind-set for personal responsibility, a growth mind-set, future orientation, and perseverance. These mind-sets should then be are continuously hammered throughout the program.

The basic need is for our educational and economic planners to look carefully on the needs of the industry and come up with courses that ensure that they develop a curriculum that addresses their skill force needs. 

Instead of industry-academia linkages government should first engage academia and industry separately to address human resource issues of the industry.