An Unemployment tsunami is coming our way. Actually, Unemployment will not be our biggest challenge; it will be Labour Underutilization, sometimes also referred to as Skills Mismatch in some sectors. Optimum utilization of our labour force has been a greater challenge for us and it will be worse in the coming months.


To put things into context, here are some figures published by Statistics Mauritius for year 2019:
Unemployed labour (39,700) – 6.7% as at Jan 2020

• Only 4% of the employed have secondary jobs – most probably due to contractual and legal restrictions on dual employment
• Almost half of the unemployed do not hold the School Certificate but around 69% of the unemployed is made up of persons with work experience – opportunity for Reskilling/Upskilling
• More than half of the unemployed are not registered at the Employment Service. Why? No perceived benefit or pull factor.

The current Workfare program and other provisions under the WRA 2019 are inapt and insufficient to deal with the challenges ahead. We need different strategies to address each segment of the unemployed population – blue collar, white collar, skilled, unskilled, experienced, young graduate, etc. We cannot put everyone in the same basket. Here are 4 proposals to help pave the way forward:


a) Imagine a modern and future-ready Employability and Reintegration framework including an adequate structure and mechanisms for training, reskilling, upskilling, redeployment, etc.

• Define and implement an active employment policy program to increase employability and assist in reintegration based on two essential criteria:
  • Willingness to work and/or mandatory work activity must be a pre-requisite for eligibility of unemployment benefit
  • The program should cater for both short-term and long-term unemployment
• Accelerate the setting up of the National Employment Agency (NEA) as a one-stop shop for registration, employment counselling, training and placement of jobseekers. Inspired on existing European models e,g. the French ‘Pole Emploi’
• The NEA should be run as a Public Private Partnership (PPP), technology-enabled and managed centrally based on Manpower Forecast and Supply & Demand principles at a macro level and multi-sector. It should also become the only source of statistics for employment and skills.
• Set up a specialised institution under the NEA to run assessment centres, upskilling of the skilled unemployed and deployment channels into demand sectors
• Entrepreneurship should be one of the main outcomes and avenues of the Framework with proper training and support provided through the NEA.

b) Re-imagine employment-related legislations in depth including income tax (PAYE):

• the legal framework on atypical work must be reinforced and support structures more explicitly defined through schemes similar to YEP or NSDP
• dual employment should be encouraged where possible to enable people to have more sources of income if they wish but pay less income tax
• social benefits for freelance/casual workers (similar to Govt medical scheme – to offer affordable premium levels to individuals) should be introduced

c) Re-ignite stagnating economic sectors to absorb displaced workforce
We have to reimagine, reinvent and reignite labour intensive industries such as MSMEs, manufacturing and BPO. And then redirect the unemployed labour force towards these sectors under proper training and support by the NEA.

d) Imagine a Future-ready Mauritian Talent pool

“The difference between Winning and Losing will be Talent”

In order to invent and ignite the economic activities, we will need skills and expertise in new sectors such data science, telemedicine or AI.

• Conduct a Skills gap analysis across industries and imagine future skills demand
• Define a national Hot Skills Demand list
• Ignite education and skills development in emerging technologies
• Many Mauritian professionals will lose their jobs in Europe or elsewhere but they will choose to stay there. Therefore, this is a golden opportunity to work on a more attractive Returning Resident scheme for those who fit the Hot Skills Demand list.

Our biggest challenge in the coming months will not be a financial one. It will be a human one. And our success will depend on how bold and effective we will be in successfully managing our human capital.