DETERMINANTS OF YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT IN WOLDIA TOWN, NORTH WOLLO ZONE, AMHARA REGION

ABSTRACT

Now days, the growth of youth unemployment is one of the critical socio-economic problems facing Ethiopia. It creates many economic and social problems in the economy. The intensity of the problem is high in urban areas in general, woldia town in particular where youth face serious difficulty in getting employment. The objective of the study is to identify the determinants of youth unemployment in Woldia Town, North Wollo Zone, and Amhara Region. To achieve its objective both primary and secondary data source were used. The primary data was collected from 203 sample youths through structured questioner from six kebele of the town. The researcher used multi -stage stratified sampling technique. The data analysis was conducted by using descriptive analysis and econometrics (binary logit regression analysis) to come up with the results. From the collected data out of 203 sample youths 114 (56.16%) are employed and the rest 89 (43.84%) unemployed. From the total 89 unemployed respondents 64 (71.9%) of respondents are characterized as belonging to frictional unemployment, 12 (13.5%) structural unemployment and the rest 13(14.5%) to cyclical unemployment type. It can be discerned from these figures that the majority of unemployed (about 85.5%) suffer from the long run unemployment. The study also employed binary logit model to identify determinants of youth unemployment. Accordingly the findings of the study show that the predictors gender, job preference and household size have positive and significant effects on youth unemployment at 5 percent level of significant. The rest predictors, namely, education level of the youth, job training, access to social network ,parental education access to credit service ,household income ,migration status, age, work experience and marital status of youths affect youth unemployment negatively and significantly at 5 percent level of significant. Based on the findings several recommendations are made. It is recommended that more focus be given on development interventions targeting the long run unemployment (frictional and structural unemployment). It is also important to facilitate and step up the private sector investment, accesses of credit service, youth training. The task of fighting youth unemployment cannot be done by the government alone so there is a need to galvanize all concerted efforts from all actors.