A minister in President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s government has revealed shocking figures regarding youth unemployment in Uganda. The minister says hundreds of thousands of unemployed Ugandan youths with university degrees resort to riding bodabodas to survival.
Finding jobs after completing school has continued to be a difficult task as more young people leave universities and other higher learning institutions. Previously, riding bodabodas (commercial motorcycles as a means of transport) were largely a job for youths without education qualifications.
But some Ugandans above the youth bracket have embraced bodabodas as a source of livelihood. And so have educated youths. In other words, bodabodas now know age nor education, especially as unemployment rises with population increase and improved access to education.
Now, Uganda’s Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Matia Kasaija, has put the figure of Ugandan Ugandan youths with university degrees who have resorted to riding bodabodas to survive at 500,000.
“If we don’t move fast, the youth who are unemployed will overtake us,” said Minister Kasaija at the Public Investment Management Conference held at Makerere University on October 17.
“Everything possible to create jobs for these youth must be done.”
According to recent census figures by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), Uganda’s population has increased to 45.9 million people.
Up to 10.4 million people are youths aged 18-30. But UBOS ED Dr Chris Mukiza, who thinks he is one of the best statisticians in Uganda, has been under pressure to resign over questionable figures, the latest revelation being that of the number of people living with disabilities, with questions on where 3.4 million of them disappeared to in the past 10 years.
See Details and more reporting on population per religion and tribe Here, There and Over There.
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