"This will really have to be the employment legislature", said the group of academics in the document, arguing that the Angolan Government cannot continue to have the "passive" attitude of believing that, with economic growth, the private sector will resolve the matter. .
"We need a plan in which the State will have to invest in the creation of jobs directly or indirectly, through companies, as well as in the training of people", they refer.
In Cedesa's opinion, the recent elections, which took place on 24 August this year, were the subject of "intense scrutiny" by national and international public opinion. But a good deal of attention has been devoted to matters of a political or legal nature.
But the concerns of Angolans are issues related to the economy, "namely to employment and unemployment". "What Angolans seem to ask for above all is employment and good living conditions", says that entity in the report.
Recalling that the current unemployment rate in Angola is 30.2 percent and that the youth unemployment rate (15-24 years old) stands at 56.7 percent, Cedesa understands that even if the statistics and considering the very large weight of the informal economy, which makes statistical calculations difficult, "the reality is that the unemployment rate is too high".
And "it is certain that the high rate of youth unemployment clearly contributed to the defeat of the MPLA [Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola] in Luanda".
"Unemployment is one of the most serious and important political, economic and social problems in Angola", he considers.
To bring unemployment down to acceptable levels, for example 8 percent, points out Cedesa, "it would take 11 years with an average growth of 4 percent a year" of the Angolan economy. And, even so, "only in 2033 would unemployment be at a satisfactory level for the well-being of the population", emphasizes the group of academics in the document.
However, "the Government's policy regarding unemployment has been essentially passive, although accompanied by some concrete programs. Essentially, the Government hopes that the macroeconomic stabilization effort (budgetary balance, control of public accounts, exchange rate liberalization, etc.) an incentive to private investment which in turn will increase employment", he says.
"The Government continues to believe that it is enough to create the right conditions for the financial and exchange rate framework and employment appears to be driven by the private sector", he says, considering that this would only be so "if Angola were a free market economy with a strong private sector and capitalized".
However, "Angola is nothing like that. It is an economy that began with a process of destruction and sovietization after independence in 1975 and whose 'liberalization', after 1992-2002, was false, or rather it was post-Soviet, imitating the mother-Russia. Some oligarchs linked to power took advantage of privatization and supposed free markets to quickly 'arm in arm' with political power to take dominant positions", he says.
Furthermore, it is a country where "there have never been true entrepreneurs, but essentially political entrepreneurs. And there has never been a private sector, but a sector that is friends with power. This reality is not strong enough to promote employment."
"To make the recovery of employment and the fight against unemployment in Angola depend only on the private sector is impossible", he concludes.
Therefore, it suggests a plan for job creation in Angola based on three vectors: the hiring of staff for the State, especially in the education, health and social solidarity sectors, the attribution of subsidies to private companies to proceed with the hiring of workers and launch extensive vocational training programs for non-graduates to equip people with practical skills in agriculture and other areas.
