Quality jobs in Bhutan are mostly concentrated in the public sector, employing mostly men and high-skilled workers. The World Bank’s Labour Market Assessment Report which was launched today revealed that women, low-skilled, and rural workers are mostly employed in low-productivity agricultural jobs as self-employed or family workers, with limited options for upward mobility. During the launch, the World Bank made four recommendations as a way forward for Bhutan to address these gaps.
The report highlighted six major challenges faced by workers and firms in the country post the pandemic recovery phase in 2022.
Low levels of female labour force participation were one of the key findings among the six. According to the report, female labour force participation is only 53 per cent compared to 73 per cent male participation.
Moreover, the report revealed that the majority of the women are engaged in low-productive sectors, mostly in agriculture.
To address these challenges, the World Bank experts recommended the need to provide low-skilled women employment opportunities in urban areas through policy reforms.
“In Bhutan, we need to address the female labour force participation that is still today below the male labour force participation and there is a significant number of women as well who cannot find jobs because they have to take care of kids at home. So our policy needs to be comprehensive in a way that the employment services centres as well as early childhood centres, can be in place to support these women to work,” said Phillippe Leite, Senior Social Protection Economist of World Bank.
In addition, the report recommended increasing the productivity of agricultural workers, especially in rural areas.
According to the report, the country’s agricultural productivity is low despite the agriculture sector having the most numbers of employees.
The report examined the labour market in Bhutan intending to identify the most pressing challenges at the pandemic recovery stage and ways to mitigate them.
Devika Pradhan and Interns (Reshma Rai & Kinzang Lhamo)
Edited by Phub Gyem
