Creating jobs and building economies
through strategic employment policies
Foluso Phillips
Phillips Consulting
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Strategic Skills for Africa
My Agenda
Some Current Realities
Objectives of national employment policies
Who should formulate polices on employment?
Performance indicators on employment issues
Formulating an employment policy
Concept of National Competencies
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Some Current Realities
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Strategic Skills for Africa
AFRICA
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Some Current Realities
• Public sector is largest employer & will continue
to be so:
– Africa’s Social security
– Largest budget and spender.
• Private sector is challenged in Africa
• New employment will come from
entrepreneurship, SMEs, cooperatives etc
• Brain drain is real and valuable
• Self employment is a strong strategy for
economic emancipation.
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Some Current Realities
• Higher enterprise creation will increase level of
employment
• The cost and process for enterprise creation is
still tedious
• There are no large corporates for SMEs to
support
• FDI will only happen through macro economic
stability.
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Objectives of national employment policies
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Economic
Environment
Employment
Policies
Labour
Market
Promoting trade and
investment for
productive employment
Employment
through
entrepreneurship
Promoting technology
for higher productivity
and job creation
Improving
knowledge and
skills
Promoting sustainable
development for
equitable livelihood
Active labour
market policies
Job protection
through wider skills
& self employment
Macro-economic policy
integration
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Reconciling supply
& demand
Strategic
Skills for Africa
Objectives of National Employment Policies
• An understanding of employment demographics
• Knowledge of the labour supply & demand
equation nationally & by sector
• An understanding of the elements which
influence the economic environment & gainful
employment:
– Level of trade, economic activity & investment
– Level and type of imports
– Market access of local output
– Policy integration – growth & employment.
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Objectives of National Employment Policies
• Influence education & training:
– Skills available & required and lead time for
‘production’
• Increase local labour content.
• Anticipatory capabilities:
– Predict demand for specific labour skills
• Encourage DFI through availability of value for
money labour
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Objectives of National Employment Policies
• Sustainable development:
– Fundamental rights at work
– Work place health & safety
– HIV/AIDS
• Remuneration and reward structures:
– Private & Public sectors
– Ensuring equity and competitiveness
– Value for money labour provision.
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Who should formulate polices on employment?
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Who Should Formulate Employment Policies?
• Government ministries:
– Labour & productivity
– Commerce & Industry
– State governments
• The Labour unions:
– International, national & sector
• Educational & technical institutions & the youths
• Employers of labour:
– Public & private.
• Employment agencies & consultants
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Performance indicators on employment issues
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Possible Performance Indicators?
•
•
•
•
•
Unemployment data – sector & region
Employed data – sector & region
Vacancies not filled due to absence of skills
Foreign labour (skills or policy gap)
Professional, technical and other graduates in
the pipeline (labour production capacity)
• Types of ‘graduates’ who fail to get jobs
• Training & development capacity
• Social unrest and crime.
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Strategy for formulating an employment policy
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Strategic Skills for Africa
What Supports Policy Formulation?
• Clear understanding national economic and social
goals
• Monitoring & benchmarking global trends in
commerce, industry & trade
• Extensive data collection and interpretation
• Constant communication and interaction with the
various stakeholders
• Manpower forecasts – national, regional and Sectoral
• Education – what should we be teaching our children
today for tomorrow
• Legislative process to enact policies critical to overall
economic development.
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Strategic Skills for Africa
The Concept of National Competencies
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Strategic Skills for Africa
The Concept of National Competencies
• Competencies relate to the knowledge, skills
and attitude required to successfully carry out a
particular role or service
• Competencies exist at a national, corporate and
individual level
• National competencies usually revolve around a
country’s natural resources
• Corporate and individual competencies enhance
and support the national competency
• National Competencies help to secure
comparative advantage
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Strategic Skills for Africa
National Competencies
• Norway:
– Fishing, shipbuilding, oil rig platforms, fishing
equipment etc
• Canada:
– Mining, mining equipment, technology and
management
• USA:
– Technology – applied to everything
• Japan:
– No resources – efficiency, discipline and quality
• S. Africa:
– Mining, Tourism, hospitality, sports, entertainment
• India:
– Emerging intellectual competencies in IT
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Nigeria’s competencies – case study
Agriculture?
– Peanuts, cocoa, rubber, cotton, palm oil,
hides & skins
– 85% of population
– Agricultural research institutes
– Agriculture taught in schools
– Tough to get into ‘varsity to study Agric
– Mastered transportation logistics to ports
– Financing through regional banks
– Regional competencies
– Industries began to emerge (Unilever,
Cadbury, UAC etc).
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Strategic Skills for Africa
What happened? – Oil Happened
• Oil created opportunity for another competency but…
• Low ‘people’ input – high financial output
• No strategic focus on developing oil related
competencies:
– Very little ripple effect, little national engagement
– No evolving national technical & organisational
competency in oil production
• Successive governments failed to invest oil proceeds:
– Expand agriculture (the competency)
– Horizontal or vertical integration (factories &
services)
– The Infrastructure to support its growth
– Reducing opportunity for
private sector
Strategic Skills for Africa
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National Competencies in Africa
» Ghana – agriculture? Cocoa
» Uganda – agriculture? Coffee
» DRC – potential competency in hydro
» Franco – phone countries – strong
attachment to France
» Gambia – tourism
» Botswana – mining
» Lesotho – hydro, agriculture
» Etc.
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Integrative Policies
• Beneficiation strategy
– Gold & diamonds to jewellery
– Cocoa to chocolates
– Crude Oil to petroleum products
– Rubber to tyres
• Focussed integration strategy
– Building industries and not companies
– Full participation in the production value chain
• SME’s must ‘feed’ industry
– Where are the industries?
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Economic
Environment
Employment
Policies
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Labour
Market
Strategic Skills for Africa
“The principle economic goal of any nation is
to produce a high and rising standard of living
for its citizens by gainfully employing them”
… Michael Porter
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Developing the skills, knowledge &
capabilities of your people in areas of clear
national comparative advantage should be the
focus of employment polices and strategies in
Africa
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Strategic Skills for Africa
Thank You!
Foluso Phillips
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Strategic Skills for Africa