‘Unemployment now at crisis level’

MANY have been left shell shocked after 2 000 unemployed youth from Windhoek flocked to a local hang-spot to submit their curricula vitae (CVs) to be considered for 16 advertised positions.

The Temperature Lounge and Restaurant in Windhoek recently advertised 16 posts, including waiters, waitresses, chefs, bartenders and cleaners, to add to their current 48 employees.

The lounge’s manager, Rousa Shikoha, said the turnout of job seekers was a shock, as the business did not expect the advert to attract many people.

“We have received over 2 000 applications, while we only have 16 vacant posts,” she said.

Shikoha said although the number of vacant posts was not indicated on the advert, it is sad that the majority of the applicants are the youth, which means the unemployment rate is extremely high.

The Namibian reported last year that Namibia’s youth unemployment rate currently stands at 50%.

The latest labour force survey, which was released in 2018, showed that Namibia’s youth unemployment rate stood at 46,1%, of which men accounted for 43,7% and women for 48,5%.

In 2016, 44% of young people in the country were jobless.

Youth unemployment was estimated at 43% in 2013 and 39% in 2012.

Speaking at the time, lawyer Kadhila Amoomo said unemployment is a human rights crisis.

Amoomo said from a constitutional point of view, the government has breached the Namibian Constitution by not providing jobs. .
“You must remember that the government has signed a social contract with the Namibian people and in terms of that contract they need to deliver. And one thing they need to deliver is jobs,” he said.

The lawyer added that if the government cannot deliver jobs, it is breaching the social contract.

“This is strange in a country like ours. You think that the minister of labour would be on the frontline of these things but it appears nobody cares,” Amoomo said.

According to Amoomo, its not only young people who are applying for jobs in lounges who are unemployed, but there are also professional graduates who are unemployed.

“We have a number of young lawyers sitting at home. If I show you my inbox and tell you how many applications I receive, they are a lot,” Amoomo said.

Political analyst Joseph Diescho also reacted on social media to Friday’s scramble for jobs, saying the state has failed to live up to its mandate of making Namibia a prosperous place for all.

“When more than a thousand young people scramble for one restaurant cleaner’s job, 33 years after independence, yet the state is maintaining the high lifestyle of too many members of parliament, a bloated cabinet of ministers and unaccountable advisors, unelected ‘governors’ whose sole job is to spy for the president, we can now say Namibia has no responsive government,” he said. Diescho said a huge bill for the independence celebration feast is being prepared while many people |look out for funerals so that they can eat.

“It is time to liquidate this government. It is time for Namibian citizens to rise up and make the country ungovernable until new leaders who can understand and respond to the people’s suffering can step in and restore order,” he said.

Labour minister Utoni Nujoma did not respond to questions sent to him yesterday.

Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF) commissar for economic development Michael Amushelelo said the unemployment crisis keeps repeating itself every year.

“However our leaders do not seem to care about this national crisis because it mostly affects the youths,” Amushelelo said.
He added that the unemployment crisis is a ticking time bomb.

“The elders don’t care because many of them are still employed and have huge pension funds and get monthly veteran money. That is why they don’t care about the youth,” Amushelelo added.

Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) chief whip Elma Dienda said the issue of unemployment in the country must be called a huge crisis that calls for urgent intervention.

“We need to know how many people are unemployed in the country, how many people completed their tertiary education and are unemployed, how many teachers are unemployed, then we see what we are not talking about,” Dienda said.

She said PDM has already raised the unemployment concerns in parliament. However, Dienda said, the president is quiet about the issue.
“We cannot be sending our children to school and later they are unemployed. This issue needs to be addressed immediately,” she added.
Martha Shixwandu, who was among the applicants, said she had to cancel attending class that Friday to submit her CV.
However, she said she was disappointed that they were many and there were only 16 vacant posts.
“I am a student and I need this job to survive,” she said.

NEFF PLANS INDEPENDENCE DAY PROTEST

Amushelelo on Friday submitted a notice to the police for a national protest against high unemployment, after over 2 000 young people flocked to a Windhoek restaurant to submit their CVs for 16 posts.

“We call upon all unemployed Namibians to join this very important protest to demand our government to take unemployment seriously and act immediately to create jobs for our people,” he said.

However, the police is yet to approve his request.

– Additional reporting by Charlotte Nandjamba