1. Africa V.B Labour Force, Employment and Unemployment
Kenya: A Wood-Carvers’ Cooperative

2. Agenda
Concepts and Measurement: Labour Force, Employment and Unemployment
Central Issues
Job creation
Unemployment and Youth Unemployment
“Decent Work”
Accelerating “Decent Work” Creation: Policies
Child Labour
Entrepreneurship

3. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Program, Goal # 8: “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all” (UNDP 2015).
Among the 12 specific targets for this goal are
“By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men...
By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth “Not in Employment, Education or Training” (NEET);
Eradicate forced labour and human trafficking and eliminate the worst forms of child labour;
Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments;
Promote policies that support decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises.

4. 1. Concepts and Measurement

8. 2. Central Issues

10. Chart 13.6 Five Types of Labour Markets for Youth in Africa

11. Explaining Employment and Unemployment Patterns
Why has the Creation of Productive or “Decent” Work Been Slow in Africa generally?

12. Explaining Employment and Unemployment Patterns
Why has the Creation of Productive or “Decent” Work Been Slow relative to the Need in Africa generally?
[Supply of Labour Side:
Rapid growth of population and labour force entrants]
Demand Side:
Difficulties in expanding labour intensive industry for domestic and export markets: due in part to competition from China and India and other countries mainly Asian
Economic growth has been propelled most by the petroleum and mineral sectors in many countries,
Structural Adjustment programs of 1980s-1990s exposed established firms to external competition and did not support new manufacturing activities for export or domestic markets..
Direct foreign investment in manufacturing has been slow in coming.

13. 3. Accelerating “Decent Work” Creation: Policies
1. Promotion of Labour intensive manufacturing
(Is China pricing itself out of international markets?)
Expanding domestic markets due to rising incomes and growing middle classes.
Activist public policies
2. Infrastructure and public works employment
3. Support for agricultural sector
4. Ensure education system is reasonably “economy and job focused”

14. 4. Child Labour

15. Is Child labour a good thing or a bad thing
Is Child labour a good thing or a bad thing? When and under what conditions?

16. Children: “hard-wired” to work along with their parents
Learning: about the world,
about useful and important tasks of life and work,
plus industriousness, discipline
many of life’s skills through the informal learning by doing Contribution to family well-being
When does child labour become abusive?

17. At what point, does children’s work can become exploitative and abusive?
Probably
when it begins to damage, not enhance the development of their human capital,
when it begins to deprive them of formal education and therefore their intellectual development,
when it begins to damage their health and
when it begins to deprive them of the normal activities of childhood.

18. International Labour Organization: Child labour is:
“Work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development. It refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school, obliging them to leave school prematurely or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.” ILO (2016)

19. How can exploitative or abusive child labolur be eliminated?

20. How can exploitative or abusive child labour be eliminated?
Part of the normal process of structural change and urbanization? Part of shift from agriculture to industry and services? Compulsory education and school attendance? Formalization of informal sector ? Monitoring and prohibition via public policy?

21. 5. A Note on Entrepreneurship
Agenda:
History and History of Thought
Does Entrepreneurship Promote for “Development”
Where does Entrepreneurial Savoir-Faire Come From?
Can Public Policy Promote Entrepreneurship? Should It?

22. Largely ignored in the main body of economic theory
Introduction:
Long recognized as performing a central role in the process of development
But,
Largely ignored in the main body of economic theory
Little attention in the general literature on development.
In and out of fashion;
II. Entrepreneurship and Poverty
Income generation and poverty, the lot of many entrepreneurs in the informal economies.
The greater the poverty, the more informality and informal entrepreneurs

23. Entrepreneurship An entrepreneur:
perceives and seizes an opportunity for the achievement of an objective,
visualizes and plans how the objective can be achieved,
undertakes to do everything necessary to implement the vision,”
brings together all of the other factors of production;

24. Entrepreneurship in the economy: the “Key Factor of Production”?
Could operate in politics, academia, religion, music, sports, or any area of human endeavor.
It can be exercised in different varieties of economic system and in the private, public and voluntary sectors

25. The roles of entrepreneurs:
a “market connecting role,” (linking up the potential market for the outputs with the markets for all the relevant inputs);
a “gap-filling role,” (doing what is not normally or easily done through markets);
an “input-completing role,” (improvising the provision of all the inputs necessary for the enterprise); and
an “enterprise creating role,” (bringing together the inputs for the production of an output over a period of time and in some sort of organization).

26. The specific activities of entrepreneurs,
A wide variety of things, some clear-cut and others more abstract.
Exploring, discovering and evaluating new opportunities;
“Seizing the initiative”; doing everything necessary for its realization;
Determining, locating, purchasing and integrating all inputs;
Establishing an enterprise, managing it, and providing leadership
Structuring and implementing incentive structure;
Bearing uncertainty and facing risk;
Bearing ultimate responsibility and managing crisis;
Continuously learning, evaluating and implementing new techniques and new management approaches.

27. In pathological circumstances - entrepreneurship may become deformed.
When law and order break down or when entrepreneurial activities are illegal, entrepreneurship may become criminalized, perhaps within Mafia-like organizations.
Entrepreneurship alone is insufficient to generate growth and development.
Instead, it requires a supportive, legal, and orderly institutional environment.

28. Source: The Economist “Pocket World in Figures” (2016 p. 64)
Of the top 10 countries in the world for entrepreneurial activity, seven are in Africa:
[A listing of the countries according to the proportion of the population between 18 and 64 who are owner-managers of businesses.]
The Economist World Ranking of Entrepreneurial Activity
Country
Owner-Managers of Businesses
1. Nigeria
39.9%
Zambia
3. Cameroon
37.4%
Uganda
35.5%
Namibia
Botswana
9. Malawi
33.3
32.8
28.1
Source: The Economist “Pocket World in Figures” (2016 p. 64)

29. Does Entrepreneurship Promote for Development”
Ex Post: “Yes”
Societal & economic improvement requires innovation and someone to bring it about.
But: Significant entrepreneurship can co-exist with stagnation and regression.
The problem of the Informal Sector”?
Suppression of entrepreneurship
Intentional suppression
Policy mess-ups?
Macroeconomic instability
Civil instability
Conclude: entrepreneurship on its own may lead nowhere, not a magic bullet

30. V. Where does “Entrepreneurship” come from?
Why do some individuals, ethnic groups, regions nations(?) have it (for a while) while others do not?

31. VI . Can Public Policy Promote Entrepreneurship? How?
Direct support for existing entrepreneurs?
Support for Informal Enterprises?
Education:
Can students be stimulated to become entrepreneurial? How?
Learning the skills of running a business

32. 3. Support for Entrepreneurship
Are there specific policies that could be used to support or promote “entrepreneurship” per se? Should there be?