Editorial: Youth unemployment: A ticking time bomb!.

In that context, the Cameroon government should have been contented that half a million of talented, creative and innovative young compatriots have fled abroad in search of greener pastures.

But the exodus, which does not include refugees fleeing the primitive fighting in the North West and South West Regions, is having a devastating effect on the economy.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Célestin Tawamba, president of the Union of Cameroonian Enterprises, known by its French acronym as GeCAM, expressed panic about the extent of the “brain drain,” which he said affects all sectors of the economy.

“From January to April 2024, nearly 6,000 Cameroonians immigrated to Canada, bringing to several hundred thousand Cameroonians who have chosen to emigrate to the country and many others in almost two decades already. Cameroon is the second country in the world providing labour to Canada, just behind France,” the GeCAM president told reporters.

Proportionally, the figure is increasing, compared to 2022 and 2023. Recall that exodus is encouraged by the numerous crises that the country has been going through for several years, with perilous consequences on the national economy and the labour market.

The President of GeCAM, said the departure of many qualified workers, employed by local companies, “leads to a loss of valuable skills and endangers the competitiveness of our companies”.

He added that no sector of activity is spared by the phenomenon. “These massive departures, carried out mostly without the knowledge of employers, cause a void that is sometimes difficult to fill and force affected companies, in several cases, to bear the debts contracted internally by the departing workers. Furthermore, when the workers had outstanding loans from financial institutions, the recurrence of the phenomenon compromises the access to credit of other employees of the same company,” Tawamba said regrettably. 

Canada is today one of the dream destinations of Cameroonians. 

According to the Quebec Statistical Institute, in just four years, between 2019 and 2023; 14,135 Cameroonians have emigrated to Canada, or around 6% of all immigrants in the country.

In its own data, the American Community Survey, noted that just in four years, 60,100 Cameroonians left for the United States, between 2015 and 2019.

The situation has gotten worse, since the start of the Anglophone crisis in 2017. In 2022, more than 90,000 Cameroonians had left for France, 15,769 to Belgium, 12,000 to Spain, over 70,000 to Nigeria etc.

The Cameroonian diaspora is estimated by many surveys to represent a whopping half a dozen million people from a country of some 29 million that needs energetic, skillful and talented youth to developed it.

Some of the youths whose interviews on the issue are trending on the social media, attribute the cause to several challenges.

"The world is a global village. Let people seek their life wherever it is better. Life is a choice… everyone knows what is good for them," one of them said.

Another said: "Perhaps, one day if governance changes, we will come back to develop our country. But for now, it’s simply impossible!"

The other claimed that Cameroonian "employers are generally slave owners or ignorant in matters of personnel management...they prefer to bribe government officials than to improve working conditions, salary, insurance...worse, recruitment is done on a tribal basis or nepotism".

For another, "I am an engineer trained at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure Polytechnique de Yaoundé. The cream of the crop...but you have to do ‘benskin’ to live. I had to leave, and here my training, my skills and my genius are recognised and highly rewarded”.

"The only solution to the problem would be to retire all old people and replace them with competent and competitive young people, aged 28 to 42. The selection should be made only by strict evaluation of qualifications, skills and experience and not by family, tribal, obedience, political, clan or friendly connection," one of them said. 

In a constructive reaction, one said: "There is the problem of social justice in Cameroon, coupled with an unhealthy business environment and lack of vision from our leaders”. 

He postulates six solutions: “We must encourage young people to create businesses, not just with words but with a suitable framework- infrastructure, justice, access to credit; we must encourage young people to access housing; we must decentralise and let the councils work on local development by not delaying their budgetary allocation as is currently the case; we need major infrastructure projects carried out by local councils; we need vast land reform because there is widespread chaos in this area; we need simpler and more transparent access to credit”. 

The Guardian Post supports the six proposals that can stem the tide of fleeing qualified unemployed or underemployed youths.

For Cameroon, the unemployment rate of 6.44%, against the average African rate of 6%, should be burrowing beneath the skin of the Yaounde regime. Though a time bomb, it is still like a whistling kettle rattling on a stove.

There is no gainsaying the fact that the country is in a dilemma as it needs those very youths fleeing abroad to achieve the much-trumpeted Vision 2035, without whom it will be an utopian dream.

The advice The Guardian Post gives, no strings attached, is for Yaounde to entice and woo the youth with leadership positions in politics, public enterprises and above all, incentives to create small enterprises in an atmosphere of social justice void of corruption.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post issue N0:3235 of Friday September 20, 2024