COMPASS / EDDY HASBY
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Thousands of residents of the City of Dili line up for the opinion vote in East Timor, 30 August 1999.
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Gridhot.ID – Even though it’s been 20 years since I left Indonesia, Timor Leste in fact, not yet prosperous.
Even economic growth Timor Leste getting worse.
Unemployment has become one of the problems, not to mention the threat of food shortages in Timor Leste.
The youth crowd standing in front of the Portuguese Embassy in Dili is no stranger to Timor Leste.
None other than they were waiting in line to get a Portuguese passport.
The Portuguese passport is an opportunity to see a better future in Europe by becoming a migrant worker.
The youth of Timor Leste do not have many choices, between staying in their country but unemployed or leaving their hometown and working abroad.
Ironically, among the unemployed in Timor Leste, many have higher education levels.
Launching The Interpreter (2/10/2020), according to the analysis of the Timor-Leste Population and Housing Census, the unemployment rate with university education is 20%.
This figure is higher than the unemployment rate for young people without education and the unemployment rate for young people with secondary education.
The latest Timor Leste Population and Housing Census Report also provides an analysis that the higher the level of education, the higher the risk of unemployment.
Meanwhile, unemployment among youth without education or non-formal education is below 10% and the rate among youth with secondary education is 18%.
In general, the report shows that young people aged between 15 and 24 made up 20% of the total population in 2015.
Then young people are only 14% of the total workforce, they make up more than two thirds of the unemployed in Timor Leste.
The Labor Force Analytical Report shows that the youth unemployment rate in 2015 was 12.3%, much higher than the national average of 4.8%.
Freepik
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illustrasi Timor Leste
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Meanwhile, the Analytical Report on Education shows that young people who do not work and do not attend education and training (NEET) reached 27.7%.
Interestingly, 53.4% of young people who had completed their education were not working at the time of the census in 2015.
The discussion about the high youth unemployment rate revolves around two themes, namely the lack of job opportunities and the lack of skills needed to work.
The absence of employment opportunities for young people has been widely reported in the media and brought up by development agencies in this country, particularly civil society organizations.
Likewise, the problem of limited domestic employment opportunities has also been highlighted in research related to Timorese migrant workers in the UK, the seasonal worker program in Australia, and the temporary work program in Korea.
At the same time, employers highlight the difficulty of finding workers that match the profile they are looking for.
For example, employers found that most employees lack the soft skills such as communication and management they value so much.
Furthermore, the Entrepreneurship and Skills Survey conducted by the Secretariat of Youth and Manpower in 2017 identified dominant skill gaps in the construction, retail and automotive sectors.
Since these sectors can provide jobs for many young people, such findings should be taken seriously.
Whatever the causative factor, the presence of a large number of unemployed youth in the country is in itself a worrying fact.
The reality of young people leaving at least before Covid-19 halting international travel to Europe or government programs sending workers to Australia and South Korea shows a lack of opportunities that need to be addressed.
Meanwhile, the prevalence of foreign workers in jobs related to roofing, carpentry and other trades indicates a lack of direct skills required in these areas.
Timor Leste’s economy is heavily dependent on government spending and over the years, the public sector has been the largest employer in the formal sector.
The government has an important role to play in addressing youth unemployment in Timor Leste.
This article has been published on Intisari Online with the title: “Making Education Like a ‘Curse’, In Timor Leste, the Higher the Level of Education the Higher the Risk of Becoming Unemployment.”
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