By Amar Yumnam
The World Bank has just published this year’s World Development Report. This is a very important event in policy making around the globe. Together with the annual Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme, these two annual publications command international attention of academics and policy planners. The UNDP Report would come forth later this month.
Unlike in the beginning years, the World Bank has made her recent reports thematic. This year the focus has been on jobs. The opening paragraph of the Report gives the rationale thus: “Jobs are the cornerstone of economic and social development. Indeed, development happens through jobs. People work their way out of poverty and hardship through better livelihoods. Economies grow as people get better at what they do, as they move from farms to firms, and as more productive jobs are created and less productive ones disappear. Societies flourish as jobs bring together people from different ethnic and social backgrounds and nurture a sense of opportunity. Jobs are thus transformational—they can transform what we earn, what we do, and even who we are.” The development impact of jobs emerges from three broad dimensions of standard of living, productivity and social cohesiveness. The Report has also brought into focus the differing concepts of good jobs around the world and significance of providing jobs to women.
The issues for deliberation centre around nine in this report. First, there is the issue of relative primacy of development vis-à-vis jobs in policy making. Second, there is the issue of entrepreneurship as they are needed as creators of jobs. Third, while jobs enhance social cohesion, what can be the role of government in this sphere besides job creation? Fourth, there is the issue of relative significance of education and on job skill formation. Fifth, there is the issue of significance or otherwise of investment targeting for job creation. Sixth, it needs to examine if there are job creations in one country at the expense of another. Seventh, there is the issue of whether to project jobs in major restructuring processes. Eighth, the issue of accelerating reallocation of workers from less productive regions and activities to more productive ones should be carefully looked into. Globally it is estimated that 1.65 billion persons are employed on regular wages or salaries while another 1.5 billion work in farming and small household enterprises. Another 200 million persons consisting mostly of youths are seriously looking for jobs. Besides another 2 billion working age population are in no job though not seriously searching. The existence of self-employment and farming is a marker in the global job scenario. Another marker is the prevalence of jobs ranging from traditional subsistence agriculture jobs to low-skilled technology to high-skilled knowledge workers.
The Report is a repository of global job scenario today and also contains a list of various policy options. Another interesting aspect of the Report is the selected studies on the people’s perception of good jobs. Reading the Report, one is necessarily brought home to the prevailing realities being faced by the choiceless group of population.
Preparing and planning for job creation involves a lot of serious application of mind by the government on development designing. This is where we are caught. Since jobs have implications for standard of living, social cohesion and productivity – all important issues for development and social stability – the government in our land should be applying its mind for a strategy for all round generation of jobs rather than just the employment under the different departments under it. The concept of job by both the government and the general population in Manipur is mainly a salary winning one in one department under the government. This concentration of conceptualisation on a single component by both the government and the general population has led to the large mark up in pricing for capturing the government jobs; I am talking of corruption. This has created a kind of atmosphere where the state is captured by the few in the government and the near ones. This has stunted the emergence of any conceptualisation of jobs relevant to the economy and society of Manipur. In fact, Manipur has not thought of jobs as a priority in policy strategisation. This has added a rationalisation of both corruption in the home front and large scale exodus of youths for jobs outside the province. But this is definitely not a sustainable solution to the problems of the land. Our social cohesion is crumbling. Our productivity does not show signs of improvement. Our improvement in living standard is not inclusive. All these are signs of the non-emergence of an inclusive jobs policy as a strategy for development.
Here we must remember that the fundamental needs for development also happen to be the fundamental need for a jobs creation policy. What is that? Infrastructure development has been found as the primary necessity for a jobs oriented policy. It comes out glaringly in the latest World Development Report. But in Manipur infrastructure still happens to be the weakest despite admitted focus by the government. My hunch is that since a minority has snatched the state, they somehow see to it that it does not develop and unemployment as a major problem continues with none really focusing on it.