The Asian Exodus to Ethiopia

On a weekday last year, the street along Piassa, Addis Ababa, was crowded with people. In the center stood five Chinese men. The crowd was amazed by what they saw and heard. The Chinese men were neither tourists nor artists, but street traders attempting to sell used items. Only few hundred meters away, police were busy disbanding and arresting local vendors selling second-hand goods and low-quality materials produced in China.

As if the economy was in short supply of unskilled labor, government officials did not respond to this market development. Interpreting their silence and indifference as a good opportunity, many more Chinese began to engage in other service sectors as chefs, waitresses, technicians, etc.

Few weeks ago, another story with a similar undertone came to the fore. According to the weekly English newspaper, The Reporter, the MIDROC Ethiopia Project Office (MEPO) is planning to recruit approximately 5000 Filipino workers to their construction sites in Ethiopia.

These Filipinos are day laborers, with no special skills that might qualify them above their local rivals. As common to construction work, the majority of the workforce is unskilled. One of the very reasons that governments and policymakers encourage the expansion of this sector is because it can create short term, decent-paying job opportunities for the mass of unskilled force in the market.

In a country where 80 percent of jobs for youth are within the informal sector, as the formal sector has not been a dynamic engine for growth, creating more jobs should be the first among the many government priority lists. Unfortunately, many believe that the MEPO plan will be another factor negatively affecting the labor market, creating further job insecurity in an already weak economy. The government has not yet issued a statement, and so it remains unclear how they intend to deal with it. — Addis Neger