Assessment of Unemployment in Dire Dawa Administration: Trends and Current Conditions

Belay Felek Alemu

doi:10.7176/ejbm/12-4-03

Abstract

In Ethiopia, urban unemployment is one of the socio-economic problems of urban population including Dire Dawa Administration where significant number of population is suffering from. According to the CSA (2018) employment- unemployment statistical survey report, the urban unemployment rate in Dire Dawa Administration is 25.3 percent. The unemployment rate among females is higher than males which accounts 33.5 percent and 17.6 percent respectively.The main purpose of this study is to assess the urban unemployment in Dire Dawa Administration. The study employs the annual statistical report of urban employment- unemployment survey (conducted from June, 2018 to July, 2018) by Ethiopian Central Statistics Agency. The study reveals that the rate of urban unemployment in Dire Dawa Administration is the highest in Ethiopia and far from the national unemployment rate which 19.0 percent. The survey report was supported with interview of individuals working in Dire Dawa economic bureau to triangulate the collected data.The unemployed population wants to work any available job to relief from their family assistance and support themselves and their families. Surprisingly, more than one third of unemployed population want to establish their own business, though still they did not do because of different constraints mainly shortage of finance, lack of training and finance and lack of place of working. Besides, the illiterate and trained urban population is more unemployed than that of the illiterate one which implies education doesn’t guarantee for employment. Therefore, the Dire Dawa administration should consider this problem and take a serious measure to minimize the unemployed population. The administration should focus on labour-intensive investments that can employ huge man-power at a time. Besides the government should create suitable working environments for those who want to establish their own business including provision of financial credit without any collateral, working place and continuous training on entrepreneurship concepts with the collaboration of nearby higher institutions. Keywords: Urban, unemployment, Ethiopian, CSA, job opportunity. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-4-03 Publication date: February 29 th 2020

Highlights

Unemployment is one of the several socio-economic problems prevailing in virtually all countries of the world
Unemployment gives rise to private and social problems in the society such as increased crimes, suicides, poverty, alcoholism and prostitution (Rafik et al, 2010 and Eita and Ashipala, 2010).Today, in Ethiopia, the problem of unemployment is a central concern of development and more recently the discussion has focused on unemployment in urban sectors
Conclusion and policy recommendation Urban unemployment is a major problem in Dire Dawa Administration which affects the societal lives in many ways

Summary

Introduction

Unemployment is one of the several socio-economic problems prevailing in virtually all countries of the world. The rest of the respondents listed other hindrance factors that limit not to found jobs including, in search for better job opportunity (4.3 percent); slack period (4.2 percent), lack of vacancy advertisement (1.7 percent), introduction of modern system of work (1.4 percent), not to work at distant place (1.4 percent); off season (0.8 percent), low payment/ salary (0.6 percent) and to alter the usual place of work (0.5 percent) respectively. All these factors cover only 15 percent of respondents.

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Methods

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Conclusion