The Economic Commission of Africa (ECA) will focus its discussions on accelerating job creation in North Africa in its upcoming webinar on Wednesday, April 7, 2021. The meeting will focus on “Active labor market policies: Good practices and recommendations for North Africa”.

The meeting will attract representatives of the North African ministries of employment, the private sector, experts, and researchers. The experts will use this opportunity to discuss how to design and implement labor market policies to increase their impact. Also, panelists will share their successful experiences in this field.

The ECA noted that Unemployment has become a major challenge for North African countries. The most prevalent forms of unemployment according to the ECA are youth and female unemployment. The ECA expects representatives from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia.

Active Labor Market Policies

As a result, the ECA calls for the need to create decent jobs for their young women and men. North African countries have put in place a significant number of national and territorial initiatives. The ECA noted that some of them constitute good practices that countries can transpose to others and also share at the sub-regional level. The main objective is to support the countries of the sub-region in the design and implementation of effective ALMPs, based on successful sub-regional experiences.

The main objective of Active Labor Market Policies (ALMPs) is to increase employment opportunities for job seekers. They also help to better match the profiles of the unemployed to those of vacant positions and to stimulate the creation of new ones. Active policies can help increase employment, reduce unemployment and dependency on social allowances.

Also, the ECA noted that ALMPs allow the unemployed to find a job that matches their profiles as quickly as possible. This provides the unemployed with the support they need to successfully re-enter the labor market. ALMPs require beneficiaries to fulfill specific obligations constituting a relationship that is more akin to an exchange. According to the ECA, performance is the reward for the effort of the unemployed.

Labor market conditions in North Africa

Moreover, the ECA cited statistics from the ILO which shows that North Africa’s structural unemployment rate was 12.1% in 2019. Meanwhile, the ECA noted that North Africa currently stands out with one of the lowest employment rates in Africa. The region has an employment rate of 40.1% on average against 58.8% for the rest of the region in 2019.

Also, the ECA added that North Africa has one of the lowest labor market participation rates. The region has a rate of 45.7% against 60.7% of the global average.

Furthermore, the ECA stated that the Youth and women are the main victims of this situation. Labor market conditions are normally not unfavorable the youth and women in the region.

Similarly, the ECA noted that in 2019, 30.2% of young people from North Africa were unemployed as against a world average of 13.6%.

At the same time, the female to the male ratio when it came to participation in the labor force reached 31.8% in North Africa. This was very much below the global average of 63.6%. The ECA stated that this is an indication of women’s limited participation in North African economies. As such, the ECA noted that this is depriving pension schemes of funding. According to the ECA, these funds are based on contributions from a reduced formal labor market. Moreover, pension schemes are under growing pressure from aging populations.