Interrogating Unemployment Amid Growth: Tracking Youth Unemployment in Neo-Liberal Uganda, 1990–2019

Abstract

The paper interrogates the paradox of persistent youth unemployment amid an upswing of impressive economic growth after Neo-liberal reforms in Uganda. The government of Uganda undertook targeted interventions to ameliorate youth unemployment, which escalated. Why was the growing economy failing to absorb labour? Why were the interventions failing? We argue that the interplay of the skewed neo-liberal and global architecture, decline of traditional labour absorbing sectors, and the debilitating syncretic ‘informal’ sector constrained sustainable youth employment and deflated interventions. The paper opines that Uganda’s neo-liberal capitalism was unique, as it was structured in a way that did not enhance domestic actors and sectors, which would have increased sustainable labour absorption and utilisation. Otherwise, Uganda’s celebratory growth was largely aid-driven and in the controversial and constrained informal sector, limited service ‘enterprises’ and import consumerism, which undermined domestic productivity and employability. Neo-liberalism and the reconstituted state did not align the domestic and global economic structures for meaningful employment. Unemployment spiralled into the socio-political landscape, while youth agency strived for better positioning.