The obstacles to Qatarization - Part I

The GCC has been facing major youth unemployment with average unemployment level for under 25 year olds averaging over 25 percent over the past few years.  

And while the issue is not that acute for Qatar due to its small population, it is nevertheless a growing problem, and one that will have to be addressed with a complex set of policy changes and improvements.

One place to start being educational system, blamed by majority of employers for not producing up to the mark workforce   

Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) study titled ‘Motivation and Perseverance: The Missing Link to GCC Knowledge Economies,’ opens with an all-important question:

“A first reaction to such high numbers of youth unemployment may be to link them to the economy, but the GCC has seen unprecedented levels of economic growth, with an average annual growth rate of 6-13 percent by country over the past 15 years.

So, if copious jobs are being created, then why are companies not filling these with young GCC nationals?”

In part, the study says, this is because it is still difficult to place the youth into a rightly 'matched' job for their skills and desires and there is a tendency for young people in the GCC, in particular in the growing middle class, to remain unemployed for long periods of time, as they wait for the 'perfect' job.

The fact that the Gulf’s youth is not that enthusiastic about working in the private sector, doesn’t help either, as government job openings cannot swallow the ever-growing influx of the nations’ graduates anymore.

But even those who would opt for a private sector employer face quite a few obstacles in securing a job.

In the experience (or perception) of employers, young GCC nationals lack not only knowledge skills and competencies - such as  reading, mathematics, accounting, problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration - but also character skills they are looking for, such as motivation, grit and persistence.

In this two-part article bq magazine will first focus on the lack of knowledge skills that are typically learnt in the classroom environment or in vocational training.

As BCG points out,

“These have been a primary focus of GCC governments over the past few years.

In fact, enormous investments have been made to set up educational infrastructure to develop these.

New schools and universities were built; training programmes set up and new learning equipment like laptops, laboratory equipment, etc. were purchased.

However, despite this enormous effort and investment, when it comes to knowledge skills and competencies, the GCC is still lagging behind many countries that have a far inferior educational infrastructure.”

For more on this story please visit bq magazine’s website