Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

International Day of Labor and Unemployment Factors in Afghanistan

Yesterday, the first of May, coincided with International Labor Day. The origin of this day turns back to the labor union movement in the United States in the 19th Century. The day is widely marked around the world to honor the contributions and achievements of workers and also encourage laborers to be aware of their rights. This day is also symbolically commemorated in Afghanistan, but there seems no big achievement related to laborers to be honored and nor there are enough employments to aware laborers of their rights. Because of joblessness Afghan laborers are ready to work seven days a week and more than ten hours per day on condition that they are provided jobs. Therefore, the usual idealistic discussions about laborers’ rights such as talking about article 23 of the international human right declaration which emphasizes on free and fair rights to work and also talking about article 48 of the national constitution of Afghanistan which emphasize on the similar points, would be essentially meaningless. In the context of Afghanistan, we should mark international Labor Day by highlighting the depth of unemployment and poverty and its root factors which totally annihilated work and workers in the country.
The first destructive factor which has not only impacted work and workers but also everything is war and violence. Unfortunately, every day, there is a terrorist event in Afghanistan. Even, every moment, there is fresh news about target killings and killing of children, women, and innocent civilians across the country. In this condition, no one seems motivated to invest or create jobs in the country. As a result, the level of unemployment and poverty has highly intensified with the intensification of violence in recent years. In 2016, Afghanistan ranked 169th out of 188 countries with 54.5% of the population below the poverty line, but the level of poverty in 2020 and or early 2021 as reported by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has increased to 72%.
The second factor which sharply increased unemployment in the country is the outbreak of covid-19. Many local companies have dismissed or decreased their workers after covid-19 spread in the country. Therefore, after the outbreak of covid-19 in the country many people have lost their jobs while they had no savings to continue their normal lives. After the advent of this factor combined with the increase of violence in the country, at the end of 2020 Afghanistan’s unemployment rate was projected to rise to 37.9%, up from 23.9% in 2019, based on the previous source assessment. There also another international source which shows the level of poverty has extremely intensified with the intensification of violence and virus in 2020 and outwardly 2021. However, the official reports about poverty and unemployment are unmatchable with the abovementioned reports.
The third important factor linked with unemployment in Afghanistan is the lack of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship culture in Afghanistan. The concept of entrepreneurship is associated with creativity and creating new values, but in Afghanistan neither there is a culture of creativity, and nor the government and universities are enthusiastic to cultivate such culture in the country. In addition, many of the entrepreneurs are imitators or opportunists, not innovators as their talents have not been nurtured in the educational centers. Unfortunately, the higher education system in Afghanistan is only organized for educational activities, not creative programs and so they produce only job seekers, not job creators. As long as everything is based on merely traditional educational courses, we should not expect unemployment reduction in the country.
The fourth factor which has led to unemployment is the lack of serious support from private sectors and local products. Unfortunately, neither the government has a comprehensive program to support national businesses and nor the people are motivated to prefer local products over foreign products. The government can promote the private sector through supporting national or international small and medium companies by easing various types of taxes and duties, providing loans, security, and critical infrastructural services. If the international firms are encouraged enough to invest in Afghanistan, and if they are ensured on low risk and good profits, the government would have achieved a huge leap in boosting employment in the country.
The government can also reduce unemployment by looking for foreign labor markets that are thirsty for the energetic labor force. There are many nations in the region that earn billions by sending their workers to other countries through mutual state protocol. Based on a report released in recent years, India annually makes 86 billion dollars, Indonesia 46 million dollars, and Philippines 12 milliard dollars through sending laborers to foreign countries. But due to the lack of such agreement, millions of Afghan workers are suffering from working in illegal labor markets. Sometimes they are not paid, but they cannot raise their voice due to lack of that formal contract. As Afghans are hardworking and reliable, they can be easily attracted if our government seriously looks for such a market.

In general, lack of security, lack of systematic supports, lack of entrepreneurship culture, the issue of covid-19, issue of administrative corruption, and more importantly the damping policies of regional countries are some of the main factors of unemployment in the country. The excessive imports of goods at lower prices than domestic goods have led to falling of most local companies in recent years. Therefore, the government, especially the accountable institutions should not allow these destructive and monopolistic factors to inflict their blows on new and vulnerable companies in the country.