Project Draft Paper
Moving Beyond the Unemployment Rate: Alternative Measures of Labour Market Outcomes to Advance the Decent Work Agenda in North Africa
Publisher
ERF
Date
October, 2019
Topic
J. Labor and Demographic Economics
It is by now well established that North African labour markets are characterized by some of the highest overall and youth unemployment rates in the world (Assaad, 2014a, 2014b). Overall unemployment rates in North Africa are about two and a half times the world average and youth unemployment rates are nearly three times the world average. Unemployment rates among women in the region are particularly elevated, with both overall and youth female rates being about four times higher than the world average. The question I address in this paper is whether the unemployment rate is a sufficient metric of Labour market performance in North Africa and how it can be supplemented with other measures to provide a more holistic picture of the adequacy of employment in the region.
I argue that the unemployment rate in North Africa highlights the Labour market insertion problems of a specific group of people, namely educated new entrants searching for their first job. As such, it does not fully capture the extent of employment inadequacy for a host of other groups that are often substantially more disadvantaged than educated new entrants. These include less educated and poor workers who cannot afford to remain unemployed and must therefore obtain whatever casual or informal employment they can find or create a job for themselves through marginal self-employment. They also include more mature workers of all types who have already entered the Labour force but had to settle for jobs that offer low remuneration and poor working conditions. Finally, they include women who opt to remain out of the Labour force because they have no prospect of obtaining work that meets a minimum set of working conditions that are acceptable to them, their families, and their communities.
I propose supplementing the unemployment rate and its companion Labour market indicators, the Labour force participation rate and the employment-to-population ratio, with a host of additional labour market indicators that capture the adequacy of employment and that can, therefore, advance the decent work agenda in North Africa and elsewhere. Over the years, the International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS), organized under the auspices of the International Labour Organization (ILO) has made numerous recommendations regarding labour statistics and indicators. I draw on these resolutions and the way they have been operationalized by ILOSTAT in my suggestions.
Research Fellows
Ragui Assaad
Professor of Planning and Public Affairs, University...