Labour Minister clarifies job creation claim
Faced with public doubt on the claim that the Tonse Alliance administration has created 997 423 of the promised one million jobs, Minister of Labour Vera Kamtukule has clarified that the jobs created include anything that provides an income.
In an interview on Monday after addressing a press conference in Lilongwe, the minister said in its definition of a job, government is guided by International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) definition of a job which covers employees, the self-employed and family workers, among many.
She organised the press briefing to make the clarification following widespread criticism of the President’s claim in his State of the Nation Address delivered in Parliament on Thursday in which he stated that in the 2021-22 fiscal year, his administration created 997 423 jobs in both the private and public sectors.
Said Kamtukule: “In a nutshell, a job is any source of livelihood where hours are spent to generate income and contributes to the economy. To us, every job matters as long as it is contributing to the economy. Whether someone is skilled or unskilled, we still have to appreciate their job because it is their source of income.”
Asked how different their creation of jobs was to previous administrations, the minister said their approach is more strategic as it is putting in place systems that will allow citizens’ participation in the economy.
She said the three priority areas Tonse has identified, namely wealth creation, job creation and food security, all have an element of job creation.
Kamtukule said even those doing small businesses must be counted as part of the jobs created.
Said the minister: “It is illogical to belittle some jobs when the same are contributing to personal and national economy. We need to change our mindset that some jobs are more important than others.
“We cannot all work in the office, others have to do other things and all this contributes to economic growth. The vendor selling airtime or Mpamba/Airtel money agents are as important as an engineer. We should learn to encourage people to do something instead of discouraging them.”
According to the minister, the number of jobs mentioned by the President as having been created so far are only those that they have been able to capture but there could be more if the ministry intensifies data collection on the matter.
She said next month, the ministry will deploy to all districts interns with a background in demography and statistics to help track jobs in the market, adding government is targeting to create 1.5 million jobs in the next financial year.
Labour law expert Mauya Msuku on Monday said government could be right with its figures based on the ILO definition of a job.
He said the country’s labour laws have not really defined what a job is because the focus is more on the employer-employee relationship.
Said Msuku: “If Malawi had a legal definition on what constitutes a job, it would have been easy to question government’s claim.
When asked how many jobs had been created under his leadership, Chakwera in a BBC interview last year, did not provide a clear answer but instead indicated that about 600 000 Malawians had lost employment due to Covid-19 impacts.
