Employment to grow by 3 pc this year

Kathmandu, June 17: The government has estimated that the growth rate of employment in the current fiscal year 2016/17 will be more than 3 per cent.

"The employment growth rate will be higher than 3 per cent due to increased economic and business activities in the current fiscal year, and expansion of national economy – Gross Domestic Product (GDP)," the government said in the Economic Survey of the current fiscal.

Last year, employment generation witnessed below 2.9 per cent growth.

The country's GDP growth rate is expected to reach 6.94 per cent from almost zero percent in the previous FY 2015/16. Due to the devastating Gorkha Earthquake and five-month long blockade, the economy of the landlocked nation was severely hit.

According to the former Minister for Industry Nabindra Raj Joshi, better capital expenditure, investment climate and reforms at business registration and doing business will create more jobs in the current FY as well as coming years.

Agriculture, tourism, service and manufacturing are the major contributors to the job creation in the country while small and medium enterprises (SMEs) employ the largest number of people.

Every year more than 512,000 youths enter into the labour market, and the domestic market absorbs very tiny portion of this number..

The country has been failing in creating sufficient employment opportunities, forcing more than 1,500 youths to leave the country in search of jobs in the foreign land, mostly in the Gulf countries and Malaysia.

According to the Ministry of Labour and Employment, only 1.5 per cent of 4.5 million Nepali workers, who left the country formally or informally in search of jobs in other countries so far, are skilled, and 23 per cent are semi-skilled while 75.5 per cent are unskilled.

The government is also hopeful of creating additional employment through the implementation of post-quake reconstruction works.

Meanwhile, the government has supported to create 35,254 self-employed job through Youth and Small Entrepreneur Self-Employment Fund.

"By March 2017, 20 banks and financial institutions, and 961 cooperatives had mobilized Rs. 3.95 billion in the youth and self-employment sector. More than 60 per cent of such investment is in productive sector. In the first eight month of the current FY, 4,568 people were provided fiscal support in establishing their enterprises," read the Economic Survey.