Unemployment a major concern [1]
Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 10:00. Updated on Thursday, February 18, 2016 - 18:46.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 16, no. 2, September 2001.
Rising unemployment is the major concern of the Tonga government at the moment, the Minister of Finance, the Hon. Siosiua ‘Otuikamanu told a Media Workshop on Economic and Financial reporting in September.
Unemployment, was said to be about 13.3% of the labour force, but Siosiua thought this was an under estimated figure, considering that out of the 2000 school leavers every year, only 500 were able to get jobs.
He said that migration had been a safety valve for unemployment, but the problem with adopting migration as a solution was because it was easier to migrate than to try and create job opportunities here.
But the government’s top priority at the moment was to tackle unemployment, and to do that Tonga needed foreign investment and a strong private sector to create employment opportunities, and to find market overseas for Tongan products and services.
He said that after assessing efforts in the past to create job opportunities a number of flaws were discovered. The $20- $30 million of aid money that was pumped into the public sector annually had produced very poor results, and the problem with this approach was, “because the Public Sector grew and not the Private Sector, but we need a strong Private Sector.”
Encouragement
Siosiua said that the approach now was to cater for the needs of the Private Sector and to remove the obstacles, which stopped them from growing. Government was hoping to achieve this by working five main pillars:
• to establish a foundation of legislation;
• to encourage and to allow the market economy to develop;
• to focus its investment in basic services such as health, education and infrastructure;
• to protect the vulnerable, the poor and the unemployed;
• to protect the environment.
Siosiua said that part of the government reform program was looking inward at government operations. He said that government had about 20 to 25 businesses, and the question remained ‘why are we in business’, he said. Despite the fact that government business enterprises had all sorts of concessions and they should be making money, but they had failed because they did not have the discipline of the Private Sector.
Under a new government reform program they wanted to know the needs of the Private Sector and to remove any obstacles that stopped the Private Sector from growing.