Afrigather At the very least two in ten Batswana are unemployed, regardless of claims by President Mokgweetsi Masisi in 2023 that his authorities created 100,000 jobs. Botswana’s unemployment charge is edging nearer to its highest-ever determine since 2008.
The Financial institution of Botswana’s 2023 annual report launched this week says that though whole employment figures rose from 717, 725 individuals in 2022 to 788, 616 in 2023, the nation’s financial system is failing to create sufficient jobs for the increasing labour power. Youth unemployment has additionally elevated from 33.5% in 2022 to 34.4% in 2023.
Botswana unemployment charge climbed to 25.9% in 2023, based on the central financial institution’s 2023 annual report launched this week. The figures counsel that the Southern African nation is prone to hitting the 26.2% unemployment charge recorded in the course of the 2008 monetary disaster.
President Masisi took workplace in 2018 on a promise to create “hundreds of jobs.” In his final State of the Nation address in November 2023, he claimed to have created 100,000 jobs. The central financial institution’s figures dent President Masisi’s second time period bid which has centered on interesting to the nation’s youth citizens. By way of quite a few job creation initiatives just like the P500 million ($37 million) Chema-Chema Fund, which funds entrepreneurial ventures, Masisi seeks to ship the fleeting job creation promise.
“A few of us have been unemployed since he took workplace and we’re going to the subsequent elections within the subsequent few months and nothing has modified,” stated Kagiso, an engineering graduate.
Forward of the final election in late 2024, President Masisi of the Botswana Democratic Get together (BDP), which has been in energy since independence in 1966 has made a number of references to the success of his authorities’s job guarantees. In a latest political marketing campaign, Masisi stated his authorities’s insurance policies had confirmed environment friendly in “creating jobs and enhancing high quality of life.”
The federal government stays the biggest employer within the nation, with greater than 18% of the nation’s labour power. The nation’s crown jewel, the mining business, which accounts for 35% of GDP, solely created 11,412 jobs or 1% of whole employment within the nation.
