RAA: Corrective actions necessary to render employment management

RAA: Corrective actions necessary to render employment management

Full employment is one of the 16 National Key Result Areas (NKRAs) of the 11th Five Year Plan (FYP). The target is to ensure full employment defined as employment of 97.5 percent.
The Ministry of Labour and Human Resources (MoLHR) demonstrated positive contributions towards addressing unemployment issue in the country through development of policy framework and guidelines, institutionalisation of employment information management system, publication on labour market, organising job fairs and generation of employment through various employment facilitation programmes.
Despite the positive initiatives by the Ministry, the Royal Audit Authority (RAA) observed certain lapses and deficiencies, where corrective actions and improvements are necessary to render the employment management more effectively in the country.
The RAA report 2016 states that there is lack of coordination, communication and reporting mechanism as well as integrated and cohesive approach amongst agencies and sectors, due to which, the Ministry was not able to provide accurate information on unemployment.
“Labour market need assessment was not carried out, monitoring and supervision mechanism were not in place. Impact assessment of various programme initiatives were also not carried out,” the RAA noted.
According to RAA, overall employment facilitation programmes were ineffective in achieving the targeted number of employment, regularising jobs to all those who had availed benefits through the programmes, addressing chronic job seekers as intended, and most of all, reducing the youth unemployment rate.
Moreover, reduction in unemployment rate to 2.5 percent does not seem to correspond with the number of 17,135 chronic job seekers as reported in Job Portal System of the Ministry. 58 percent had remained unemployed for more than a year after having registered with the ministry. In absence of integrated, reliable and updated information on employment, the validity of achievement of employment target of 97.5 percent cannot be independently corroborated.
Employment generation programmes were initiated with the purpose to provide regular jobs to the candidates. However, 57.6 percent candidates under Direct Employment Programme and Employment Skills Scheme were not given job on completion of the programme as intended.
The MoLHR has incurred Nu. 89.32 million to train these candidates.
The RAA report stated, creation and promotion of employment has been the development priority of the government in all Five Year Plans. Creating gainful employment with a focus on quality of employment is a key priority for the government as reflected in planning and strategy documents including the 11th FYP.
Unemployment situation was first witnessed in 1990s which was then 1.4 percent. Bhutan experienced an increasing trend in unemployment rate starting from 1.9 percent in 2001 to 4.0 percent in 2009 and thereafter a fluctuating trend with unemployment rate of 2.1 percent in 2012 and 2.9 percent in 2013.
According to the recent Labour Force Survey Report (LFSR) 2015 the current unemployment rate is 2.5 percent.
However, reducing youth unemployment is a challenge, which is on constant rise. Youth unemployment rate is 10.7 percent and constituted the major proportion of the total unemployment. In aggregate, the female unemployment rate was higher than male unemployment rate.
According to the RAA report, the MoLHR had initiated several programmes to facilitate and promote employment in the society without a proper study determining the needs gaps in the current labour market. 80 percent of the total budget allocated for employment generation and promotion programmes for the 11th FYP. “No impact assessment on the programmes initiated had been carried out,” the RAA team noted.
The statistic on the labour market showing more than 15 percent of employed persons working for more than 70 hours in a week in 2015 and substantial number of person looking for additional job throughout 2010-2015 indicated prevalence of low quality job and underemployment, the RAA noted.