Question 3:

a)
Unemployment, total (% of total labor force) (modeled ILO estimate)

Developed Developing
Year
France Germany Liberia South Africa Ukraine

2019 8.4 3.1 2.9 28.5 8.2

2020 8.6 4.3 3.3 28.7 9.5

Average 8.5 3.7 3.1 28.6 8.85

Figure 3.1. Unemployment, total (% of total labor force) (modeled ILO estimate)
(World Bank n.d)
Regarding the table above, among the developed countries, France suffered the most in the
unemployed people during pandemic crisis with 8.5% in average and in terms of developing
countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa witnessed the highest proportion in
unemployment rate from 2019 to 2020 with the average of 28.6%, whereas for Liberia is 3.1%
and Ukraine is 8.85%.

Figure 3.2. Native-born participation rates in Germany and France 2019 (OECD n.d)
Total labor force participation in France 2019-2020 (%)
 Unemployment rate by age groups, gender in France (%)
Male 2019 2020
15-24 20.8 20.3
25-54 7.3 7.0
55-64 6.8 5.8
Female 2019 2020
15-24 18.2 19.9
25-54 7.6 7.1
55-64 6.8 5.8
Unemployment rate by immigration status in France
 Total labor force participation in Germany 2019-2020 (%)
Unemployment
Unemployment rate by sex and agerate in Germany
in Germany 2019
from October 2020 – October 2021
Foreign-born Native-born
Male 6.1 2.9

Female 4.9 2.3

Total 5.6 2.6

labor
force
 Total labor force participation in South Africa (%)

Unemployment rate by age groups, gender in South Africa 2019-2020 (%)

Male 2019 2020
15-24 53.2 55.4
25-54 24.7 26.1
55-64 11.7 13.0
Female 2019 2020
15-24 61.7 64.0
25-54 28.5 29.4
55-64 7.8 7.9

Black African women unemployment in South Africa (%)

 Unemployment rate by gender in Liberia (%)
Male 2019 2020
Total 3.964 4.030
Female 2019 2020
Total 2.456 2.480

Unemployment rate by age groups, gender in Ukraine (%)

Male 2019 2020
15-24 15.5 19.8
Total 8.5 9.8
Female 2019 2020
15-24 15.3 18.5
Total 7.9 9.1

Total labor force participation in Ukraine 2019-2020 (%)

b) Based on the collected data:
 France:
o 15-24 youth male suffered the most France from 2019-2020.
From those figures presented above, it is noticeable that the youth male group age 15-24 is
suffered most by the impact of Covid-19 in France. According to Masson (1995), the young have
higher unemployment rate in France because they have smaller human capital skills sought by
the employers. Also, from 2019 to 2020, the unemployment rate in France declined 0.5% due to
those who have been unemployed for extended periods of time becoming disheartened and
quitting their job hunt given the added challenges posed by the coronavirus outbreaks (ILO-
OECD 2021).
 Policy suggestion: To reduce the significant rate of youth unemployment in France, there
are some policies should be issued. The job market's growth from 2017 to 2027 will be
largely determined by our ability to reduce the gap between employees with better skill
levels entering the labor market and demand for jobs driven by technological
advancement (France Strategie 2016). Therefore, first, the government need to strengthen
the human capital skills of people to make them more flexible in the workplace such as
technical skills, communication, self-awareness, complex problem solving, etc. As with
all advanced economies of France in technology or human life, these skills are not very
complicated to operate to young people. Next, to decline the rate of unemployment
caused by the time spells, the government should offer to jobless people some credits to
take a job such as give subsidies to the unemployment youth people when they seeking
for a job.

 Germany:
o 15-24 youth male faced unemployment problem highest from October 2020-
October 2021:
There are two reasons why youth unemployment is highest in Germany. First, males frequently
have lower qualifications though the major border in Germany’s labor market is between those
who have and those without education on the labor market. Second, the structural shift to a
service society from an industrial society has resulted in fewer job opportunities in traditionally
male-dominated sectors.
 Policy suggestion: As reported by Matthew Yglesias (2014), German education policies
are implanted various ways to labor markets. However, the lower qualifications people
still exist therefore, to handle the problem of skills gap, Germany should take vocational
education more seriously such as provide more training programs, or apprenticeship
schemes for the unemployment. To encourage the male in service society, Germany
should retrain male unemployed industrial workers to have fundamental I.T. skills which
support them to find work in the service sector, also they should give them incentives
such as some grants to encourage them in their learning activities.

o Male foreign-born suffered more than female:

It is argued that foreign males are more often suffer unemployment than female. According to
the Cologne Institute for Economic Research, foreigners in Germany are more prone to be
unemployed. Among them, Immigrants from Muslim nations, notably those from Lebanon, Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Iran, had the greatest unemployment rates (DW, n.d). This is just partly owing
to their inferior human capital, but mainly because of their disadvantageous labour market
allocation (Beyer 2016)
 Policy suggestion: To decrease the immigrant unemployment in Germany, in short-run
term, improving language acquisition is necessary for the foreigners in order to reach
higher education degree in the long-run period. For example, announcing an immigration
policy that require immigrants to join language classes in Germany (Wido 2010).

 South Africa
o Youth unemployment of black African women aged 15-54 is higher than
male:
According to Stats Sa 2021, gender discrimination is a prominent issue in South Africa in a
number of social and economic situations. Despite significant advances in fostering gender
equality, women are still frequently marginalized from decision-making procedures. Therefore,
males are more likely than women to be in paid jobs, while women tend to undertake unpaid
labour. Statistics from the Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey show that the 'hard lockdown' in
South Africa particularly harmed women, implying that the pandemic has worsened the gender
gap in the country's labour force (Chitiga et al. 2021).

 Policy suggestion: The big problem in South Africa is gender discrimination, so to tackle
this issue, the government need to oblige firms to report on the representation and
incentive provided to their employees by gender. Also, they should concentrate on
women empowerment by enabling women to gain their skills to boost women’s re-entry
into the workforce.
 Ukraine
o Youth male aged 15-24 suffered unemployment rate higher than female:
Within the Ukrainian educational system, youngsters finish their schooling mostly between the
ages of 20 and 22, thus excluding a sizable proportion of this age group from the economic
activities (Libanova et al. 2014). Furthermore, pandemic-related health consequences have
resulted in longer school-to-work transitions or shutdowns of youth-owned businesses; rendering
increased rates of youth unemployment. The ILO Monitor's information also demonstrates that
the 'lockdown generation' - young people who become victims of the pandemic's implications -
has greater difficulties in securing employment. Among them, young women devote more time
to education than males so they end up with a lower unemployment rate in terms of gender
(United Nations 2020).
 Policy suggestion: As mentioned above, the unemployment rate of 15-24 years old male
is higher than female in Ukraine. Therefore, to solve this problem, it should cooperate
with other sides such as state institutions, business, and education institution. From the
side of state institutions, they should participate with youth employment by encourage
entrepreneurial activity, the regulation of relations amongst business and educational
corporations, or create favorable environment for the improvement of entrepreneurship
and consolidate the relationship between small and middle business. On the business side,
they can collab with educational corporations to form the necessity of professional
training. Last, in the side of educational institutions, develop educational schemes in
correlation in order to specialize the students’ practical skills with the obligation of labor
market.
 Liberia:
In Liberia, youth unemployment is a serious problem (FPA 2016). This is because many young people in
the country do not entirely benefit from the education systems. Furthermore, employers prioritize work
experience as a recruiting factor, presenting a challenge for young workers who are unlikely to have
extensive work experience (Mel, Elder & Vansteenkiste 2013).

-> Policy: The government could work collaboratively with banks to provide low-interest loan programs
for young people. Moreover, improving education, offering appropriate vocational training, and
generating opportunities for long-term job development are all critical initiatives toward empowering the
youth. As the youth seek more formal work opportunities, innovative approaches for creating formal-
sector employment must also be developed.

c)The COVID-19 health crisis has expanded at an alarming rate, infecting millions of people and
bringing economic activity to a halt as governments enforced strict movement constraints to
prevent the virus's spread (The World Bank 2020), also it affected the unemployment rate over
the world. During the Covid-19 outbreak, demand from customers across all industry fields
declined then it leads to the recession in countries’ economic as well as the giant number of
unemployment (Petterson et al., 2020).

According to The World Bank 2021, during the pandemic period, Sub-Saharan Africa is set to
encounter a recession in 2020 caused by Covid-19 health crisis. Therefore, they suffered from
cyclical unemployment because in the recession time, people tended to save more of their
disposable income so the demand for goods and services declined as well as the rate of
unemployment increased. However, Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to recover by 3.7% growth
in economy by the year 2021 (IMF n.d), therefore, in the future, Sub-Saharan African countries
would tackle the problem of cyclical unemployment relatively when the GDP increases leading
to the development of purchasing for goods and services of consumers. Furthermore, all of the
countries in Sub-Saharan Africa faced structural unemployment because they have the greatest
rates of educational exclusion of any region (UNESCO, n.d). Besides, according to UIS data,
about 60% of youth in the ages of 15 to 17 are not enrolled in school. Therefore, as the table
mentioned above, that is why the unemployment rate in young people from 15-24 years old in
developing countries is higher than other groups' age with the impact of Covid-19. Specifically,
South Africa has the highest proportion of mismatched employees in 2019, with more than 50%
skills mismatches and the lowest production levels among 30 nations due to the impact of Covid-
19 (Ketchell 2021)

In most of Europe countries such as Germany and France, the main problem which is related to
structural unemployment is a variety of structural mismatches and skills shortage (Brunello
and Wruuck 2019). Also, the structural unemployment in France resulting from the significant
proportion of workers working in temporary 2nd occupations in factories and service sectors —
who are unlikely to be advanced to long-term contracts and hence strike. This results in a lack of
employment flexibility for French workers to cope with the changing jobs and objectives
(Welcome to France n.d). Therefore, due to the infection of Covid-19, if there are no long-term
employees with sufficient skills, it would cause France's economic growth to get worse in the
future. In 2020Q2, France faced the recession trough and the GDP growth has been near zero on
average for the three successive quarters leading to the cyclical unemployment, however, since
2020Q3 it began to recover and the GDP growth increased to 3% in 2021 (Ferrara and Mignon
2021) so it would be expected decrease in unemployment in the future. However, the Germany
recession is anticipated to be the least suffer in Europe with the GDP just declined by 5% in 2020
at a time of Covid-19 (Partington 2021). Therefore, the problem of cyclical unemployment in
Germany would be handled better in the future.

Question 4:
 Unemployment rate:
- Germany:
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