Yesterday most of the world celebrated Labor day, today I wanted to share an article that is shocking, depressing and hard to revert situation: Bolivian young professionals face underemployment, and/or unemployment. Bolivia does not elude what is happening around the world. Ruy D’Alencar writes for El Deber:

Short, from La Paz, uses dreadlocks in his hair and holds a Bachelor’s degree in sociology. He also has a diploma in development of social projects, but does not find employment. So now he is engaged in grazing neglected fallow land for a payment equivalent to Bs 40 per day. [less than six dollars]

This is Yamir Pérez (29), one of many young Bolivian people belonging to that eternal ‘generation sandwich’, usually working in precarious conditions (without social security, without fixed salary) or are unemployed despite his training. Yamir lives in Santa Cruz and has eight months doing informal work, while seeking a contract with any NGO or State entity.

50% of the unemployed population in Bolivia, between women and men, are people like him, says an analysis of statistics of 2011 made by the Centre of studies for labour development and agriculture (Cedla).

The data are from the National Institute of Statistics (INE). The interpretation is from Cedla.

“We are talking about nearly 75,000 young people who have sought work in 2011 and have not been able to find it, including professionals”, says the report by the Cedla, stressing that this is a high rate of youth unemployment and that the phenomenon occurs despite the GDP growth in the last five years (4.6 per cent on average, according to the Ministry of economy). [keeping in mind that GDP grew because of high international prices of our commodities, not because this government had to do anything about it]

“It is contradictory, institutions as well as family pushing you to study, and require you look for a job, but nobody guarantees that you get hired,” says Yamir, a pause to tell his case. Return to rub at the edge of a sidewalk and, while his knife reaps the undergrowth, he confesses: “sometimes I feel I lost time and effort at the University”.

Despair and anger. Is what the chest of Juan Pablo Arancibia (26) is full of. A technician for computer maintenance, but works as a bricklayer in a work site of the km 12 of the double track to La Guardia, because he didn’t find a company that hired him as a technician nor has he have money to put his own maintenance shop.

“I have a wife and a daughter, nine months, you tell me, what else can I do?”, said. Get paid by progress of work, do not have social security and he feels weird by everyone telling him it is ‘normal’ that things are like this for workers.

Despite efforts of the State, like “my first dignified employment” program, the phenomenon of unemployment of young professionals is rife. According to the Cedla, 25% youth unemployment falls in the range of ages of 25 to 30 years. And this news hits young people unemployed just before labor day.

Data [facts]

-‘Nimileuristas’. It’s a sector of the Spanish young population that has academic training, but has no job and if he has one, monthly salary is less than 1,000 euros.

-Crisis. In Spain and in much of Europe, the ‘nimileuristas’ have been sprouting, realizes the newspaper El Pais of Madrid, as the global financial crisis has accelerated. In Bolivia there is a similar phenomenon, but with a different context.

Yamir Pérez (29)

My last fixed work was in an Internet cafe. I was attending at night, they paid me Bs 700 per month and that was eight months ago. Also worked as a bricklayer, mason assistant, electrician assistant and as bartender.

My parents require me to provide, that I get a job, to make my contribution to the Pension Fund. Bah, how easy is that! It is as if they think that I am a looser. For this reason I decided to grab any job, such as clearing land, so no one says that I am weak.

A few weeks ago they paid me Bs 200 for clearing a large field. I think that I and my generation, even more if we have invested time in study, we deserve better. The more I got paid, I received Bs 1,400 per month, without social security. That was two years ago.

Raquel Balcázar (29)

I find it hard to get a job. I have a degree in social communication, but I have specialization in audiovisual and political analysis. What I do are documentaries, but in the form of consulting, without social security.

Now I’m unemployed. My husband is who has a fixed job, but they pay little, even more so if considered to have to pay a rental since we moved from Santa Cruz to La Paz.

A time I worked as a journalist on a TV channel. It was in a place where you work more than 10 hours for $ 200 or $ 300 a month. It is not fair. I do not want to live to work, I want to work for a living. So I have to find.

Juan Pablo Arancibia (26)

I’ve done everything. I am technician for computer maintenance. I could not finish my studies. I was unemployed and I can not give that luxury because I have a family.

Nobody wanted to hire me and for me having a job is to have to feed my family. I feel that I have thrown time, money and effort away by studying, if in the end nobody seems to care if you have means to earn your bread decently.

“You do not have the technical-appearance”, they told me. That is why I am bricklayer, because the doors were closed to me. They pay me Bs 130 a day for my labor force.

Rubén Mercado (29)

I get little works in Radio Betania. I am a Communicator graduated in 2010 and since then I have not had a formal employment or steady salary. I do everything.

I am a Communicator specializing in radio and street reportage. I came out of a private University, but that is no guarantee.

Sometimes I do radio spots and jingles on the radio, they pay me Bs 140 for each work. In the afternoons, at times I helped in an used cars vending.

I’m desperate! Hopefully I do something more than Bs1,000 per month. I want to go to the U.S. to try my luck. Let’s see what happens.

The ‘U’ must cease to train wage-earners – Carlos Soria / sociologist

The labour market of professionals is always limited, it does not grow in function of the job offer. This is because the market has its own logic, which does not respond to the variable ‘trained professionals’.

All the blame of the problem must not go to the institutions, in this case to the universities, for lack of vocational guidance. But what can be distinguished is that universities already must stop training for civil servants [any type of wage-earners] but reorient its contents to the formation of entrepreneurs.

The second issue is that the University should begin to train professionals with practical skills, so that upon graduation, graduates are more likely to get a job and not be discarded for lack of experience.

While things remain as they are, professionals and all workers always will be at the expense of employers. Because of that, we should reverse this phenomenon by encouraging entrepreneurship in the classroom.

http://www.eldeber.com.bo/nota.php?id=120429220654

Demoralizing reality which adds fuel to future social conflicts, threatening peaceful coexistence. I can only say to those out there looking for a job, try to be innovative, bring ideas to the workplace, do not despair, you are not alone and it is not your fault. Keep going forward, we deserve better.