Ethiopia - Urban Labor Markets : Challenges and Prospects, Volume 2. Background Paper
This report focuses on a central element of Ethiopia's challenge: the urban labor market. The headlines, which are detailed in the report, are dramatic, and include the following: open unemployment has been persistently high and average durati...
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| Format: | Other Poverty Study |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2007/03/7471992/ethiopia-urban-labor-markets-challenges-prospects-vol-2-2-background-paper http://hdl.handle.net/10986/7994 |
| Summary: | This report focuses on a central element
of Ethiopia's challenge: the urban labor market. The
headlines, which are detailed in the report, are dramatic,
and include the following: open unemployment has been
persistently high and average duration is long, though
recent trends suggest improved performance. There is a
significant segmentation-two relatively privileged sector in
the public and formal private sectors, a massive informal
sector and a large stock of unemployed. Individual
transitions across these states have increased over time,
but remain relatively limited. Formal sector employment in
urban areas is dominated by the state and manufacturing
sector employment remains among the lowest in the world. The
majority of those who are working in urban areas are engaged
in informal sector activity, typically as a last resort but
also as a persistent state. Average wages are low,
especially for the unskilled and in the informal sector, but
productivity is also very low. Women are especially
disadvantaged in the labor market-and typically face worse
outcomes with higher levels of unemployment, lower wages,
and a greater concentration in the informal sector. Many
youth seem to enter the labor market through low quality
jobs in the informal sector or into unemployment. The
structure of this report is as follows. Volume I synthesizes
the emerging findings and policy implications while Volume 2
presents a series of thematic chapters which summarize the
underlying background work. In this volume the next chapter
sets the stage for the analysis by clarifying the metrics of
the key labor market indicators. Chapter 3 looks at the
structure of urban labor markets and what has hindered their
ability to generate jobs despite the acceleration of growth
in the last few years. Chapter 4 focuses on the challenge of
urban unemployment, while Chapter 5 looks at the effects of
migration on urban labor markets. The final chapter in this
volume reviews the emerging policy agenda. |
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