Interview: Libya relies on training, private sector to tackle high unemployment

TRIPOLI, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Enhancing vocational training and private sector are effective solutions to Libya's current high unemployment, Libyan Minister of Labor Al-Mehdi Al-Amin said in a recent interview with Xinhua.

"Libya's current unemployment rate is 5.5 percent. It is considered high for a small society such as Libya with a population of only six million," Al-Amin told Xinhua.

The statistics were drawn from a survey conducted from 137,000 registered citizens in the job-searching system of 55 labor offices in Libya.

Young people are the largest unemployed group in Libya, according to the minister.

"The rate of unemployed young people is 67 percent, compared with the unemployed people aged over 50," Al-Amin noted.

The minister also said the Libyan public sector suffers an overload of employees.

"The Ministry of Education has nearly 500,000 employees, which is of course very high," he said, adding that "random appointments" after the revolution in 2011 are the main reasons.

When asked about the solution, Al-Amin pinned his hopes on vocational training and the private sector.

"One of our main tasks is training. We have trained good trainers so that we have local trainers. We also cooperate with trainers from the European Union and Jordan," He said.

"There is also coordination with the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Planning of the Government of National Accord to give opportunities to young people in small and large private enterprises to reduce the large number of public sector employees," he added.

He expressed hope that the private sector will absorb a large number of employees to ease the burden on the public sector.

Meanwhile, the authorities are helping people with intellectual, auditory, visual and physical disabilities to find employment, the minister said.

Unemployed women are also the group the authorities are focusing on, Al-Amid said.

"We have plans for empowering women, for which we set up offices that aim at developing database for the whole country," he said. Enditem