Currently, as many developing countries are facing the problems of shortages of employment, if low-income countries are not capable of managing employment and social security provisions, their unemployment problems will worsen, according to a report recently released by the International Labour Organization-ILO.
The unemployed can be defined as persons of workable age seeking jobs and those wishing to do jobs. Types of the unemployed comprise those who were sacked from employment, those who withdrew from employment, those who had experienced employment seeking jobs and those who start seeking jobs.
Number of the unemployed is larger at a time when the State economy is on a downward trend. It is difficult to solve the circle of unemployment. The unemployed are facing depression and social problems due to a long spare time. Unemployment may lead to mental problems, harming the economic, social and health issues of individuals as well as the whole society. Moreover, the unemployed may become victims of human trafficking as a subsequence of shortage of employment.
Relevant governments have to firmly adopt the proper policies on labour and employment affairs so as to solve the labour problems. They have to create new employment opportunities for citizens as part of remedying the downward trend of the State economy without relentless efforts. They need to provide assistance for the loss of socioeconomic life of labour in all kinds of crises on priority while striving for recovery of the economic sector which faced terrible losses.
The report on statistics related to labour affairs released by the Ministry of Labour in March 2023 mentioned that Myanmar faced 0.17 per cent of unemployment rate in 2020, 1.33 per cent in 2021, 2.53 per cent in 2022 and 3.69 per cent in 2023. As the unemployment rate has been gradually increasing since 2020 to date, it is necessary to carefully tackle the unemployment problems of the country.
The outbreak of Covid-19 fuelled the increasing amount of unemployment in Myanmar. Moreover, current complicated problems in the country help raise the number of unemployed. As they cannot seek jobs at home, they go abroad for work. It is a problem of brain drain.
A press release issued by the Ministry of Labour stated that more than 216,000 Myanmar labour went abroad to work from 1 February 2021 to 28 February 2023. Those labour were legally sent to foreign countries with the issuance of the Overseas Worker Identification Card-OWIC. However, the number of other labourers who go to neighbouring countries in various illegal ways is expected to be the larger number.
Relevant governments have to firmly adopt the proper policies on labour and employment affairs so as to solve the labour problems. They have to create new employment opportunities for citizens as part of remedying the downward trend of the State economy without relentless efforts. They need to provide assistance for the loss of socioeconomic life of labour in all kinds of crises on priority while striving for recovery of the economic sector which faced terrible losses.
