The Labour Minister, Ugyen Dorji, said the ministry alone has engaged about 14,000 individuals so far through various training and programmes besides His Majesty The King and the government’s commendable effort to solve unemployment in the country. The minister shared this during the question hour session of the National Assembly today.
The minister added around 1,400 individuals have been engaged in the Build Bhutan Project and 1,300 in the tourism sector. Likewise, the employment service centre under the labour ministry has also helped about 1,500 individuals in finding a job.
“Under the critical skills training programme, in the last year, we have engaged about 1,154 individuals. Likewise, under the Youth Engagement and Livelihood Programme, 848 youths were benefited. Entrepreneur Development Programme has helped 371 and Course sharing and skills sharing programme, almost 8,000 individuals have been provided help.”
The minister added that the pandemic has increased both unemployment and youth unemployment rate in the country.
“Over the last one year, due to the pandemic, many have lost their jobs. At the same time, not many jobs are available in the market due to the pandemic. As per the Labour Force Survey Report 2020, over 22 per cent of youth are unemployed. And the overall unemployment rate has also increased to 5 per cent in the last one year.”
The youth unemployment rate in the country has almost doubled from 2019 to 2020. According to the Labour Force Survey Report, 2020, the overall youth unemployment rate has increased from 11.9 per cent in 2019 to 22.6 per cent.
And the youth unemployment rate for 2020 is the highest to date. As per the Labour Force Survey Report 2020, there were about 17,000 persons unemployed in 2020, of which almost 7,000 are youth.
Passang Dorji
