The Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) recently announced 1,596 vacancies, primarily for tax administrators, including customs officers. Three or four years ago, the institution recruited another 1,097 staff through the Public Service Recruitment Secretariat.
It seems more logical for hiring institutions, especially those involved in specialised work, to recruit their staff directly, particularly when substantial numbers are involved.
Indeed, it is not appropriate to subject the tax collector to common staffing and expenditure restrictions, considering that tax revenue accounts for more than 70 per cent of the government budget.
However, my concern is how TRA, and other employers considered to offer plum jobs, manage the recruitment process. For the 1,596 openings, TRA received 135,027 applications.
They shortlisted 112,952 applicants, eliminating those who did not meet the requirements specified in the vacancy announcement. These individuals have now been invited to written interviews to be conducted at nine zonal centres.
You might say it’s a quite orderly arrangement. However, 111,356 applicants will have to be rejected to arrive at the final number of hires. So why send tens of thousands of job seekers across the country at their own expense, and that of the hiring institution, while knowing you will ultimately find reasons to reject them?
Why can’t those reasons be identified earlier to save the applicants the embarrassment and money? We appreciate that the employers are striving to demonstrate transparency and fairness, but surely there has to be a better way of doing this?
Conversely, why do so many people scramble for few jobs? TRA is, admittedly, a prime employer, but this also highlights a high rate of unemployment, particularly among young graduates.
According to the 2021/22 Tanzania Integrated Labour Force Survey, 700,000 graduates are released into the labour market annually, but only about 10 per cent secure decent jobs in the formal economy.
This presents a multifaceted problem: the economy is still largely informal, hence unattractive to graduates, who are inadequately prepared by a flawed education system. The survey found that many youths do not fully engage in training, exacerbating the mismatch between education and labour market needs.
“Considering that youths account for 32 per cent of the working-age population, this is a significant demographic issue. Although youth unemployment is reported at a low 3.9 per cent of the working-age population, the country’s population grows at 3.2 per cent and is projected to reach 80 million within five years. Meanwhile, 17 per cent of the working-age population is categorised as “economically inactive,” a euphemism for joblessness.
I am aware of several government-initiated programmes aimed at engaging youth in production in modern agriculture, fisheries, small and medium industries and other sectors. The question for you and me is: Are they sufficient to mitigate youth unemployment?
🖊 The writer is a Media and Communication Consultant. amkumbwa@gmail.com
