Sadc proposals on labour migration in the pipeline

Dar es Salaam. Senior officials and experts from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) are preparing policy and guideline proposals to widen the scope for employment and labour migration.

The officials yesterday started a three-day meeting ahead of the meeting of the ministers responsible for labour and employment from the 16-nation bloc slated for Thursday and Friday, this week.

Employment and skills development director in the Prime Minister’s Office (Policy, Parliamentary Affairs, Labour, Employment, Youth and Disabled) Ally Msaki said yesterday the proposals would be forwarded to the responsible ministers for discussion and deliberation.

Unemployment rate in the Sadc region stood at between nine and 11 percent, above the global level of 5.1 percent. Globally, 200 million people are jobless.

According to the 2018 National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) statistics, unemployment rate in Tanzania stands at is 9.7 percent.

“The discussion will centre on criteria to be considered for us to widen the scope for employment.

“Tanzanians would love to work in, among others, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. It is a responsibility of ministers to prepare labour migration guidelines and this is why they are meeting to discuss and deliberate on our proposals,” said Mr Msaki.

He said it was high time Tanzania capitalised on the region’s opportunities, which include demand for Kiswahili teachers. During the summit of the Heads of state that was held here in August last year, Sadc adopted Kiswahili as its fourth official language, after English, French and Portuguese.

The Labour and Social Welfare permanent secretary from Zimbabwe, Mr Simon Masanga, said the meeting was discussing on how to address a growing mismatch between graduate skills and job market requirements.

“Youth unemployment is a ticking time bomb,” warned Mr Masanga.