dc.contributor.author	World Bank
dc.date.accessioned	2022-05-13T15:11:01Z
dc.date.available	2022-05-13T15:11:01Z
dc.date.issued	2022-05-16
dc.description.abstract	A decade since the spark of the Arab Spring, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region continues to suffer from limited creation of more and better jobs. Youth face idleness and unemployment. For those who find jobs, informality awaits. Few women attempt to enter the world of work at all. Meanwhile, the available jobs are not those of the future. These labor market outcomes are being worsened by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Jobs Undone: Reshaping the Role of Governments toward Markets and Workers in the Middle East and North Africa explores ways to break these impasses, drawing on original research, survey data, wide-ranging literature, and young entrepreneurial voices from the region. The report finds that a prominent reason behind MENA’s unmet jobs challenge is a lack of market contestability in the formal private sector. Few firms in the region enter the market, few grow, and those that exit are not necessarily less productive. Moreover, firms in the region invest little in physical capital, human capital, or research and development, and they tend to be politically connected. At the macro level, economic growth has been mediocre, labor productivity is not being driven by structural change, and the growth of the stock of capital per capita has declined. New evidence generated for this report shows that the lack of dynamism is due to the prevalence of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). They operate in sectors where there is little economic rationale for public activity and they enjoy favorable treatment—flouting the principles of competitive neutrality. Meanwhile, labor regulations add to market rigidity, while gendered laws restrict women’s potential. To change this reality, the state must reshape its relationship toward markets, toward workers, and toward women. The region must create a level playing field between SOEs and the private sector, replace labor rigidities with appropriate social protection and labor market programs, and remove barriers to women’s economic participation. Governments can also foster new sectors and occupations, gradually propelling market contestability and job creation. All reforms will have to rely on improved data capacity and transparency to create a new social contract between governments and the people of the region.	en
dc.identifier	https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099007107072234307/idu0f74af2f60e29b046360bb24075c306441b13
dc.identifier.doi	10.1596/978-1-4648-1735-9
dc.identifier.isbn	978-1-4648-1735-9
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10986/37412
dc.publisher	Washington, DC: World Bank
dc.rights	CC BY 3.0 IGO
dc.rights.holder	World Bank
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo
dc.subject	JOB CREATION
dc.subject	WOMEN AND YOUTH EMPLOYMENT
dc.subject	CHANGE IN EMPLOYMENT
dc.subject	ARAB SPRING
dc.subject	JOB MARKET
dc.title	Jobs Undone	en
dc.title.subtitle	Reshaping the Role of Governments toward Markets and Workers in the Middle East and North Africa	en
dc.type	Report	en
dc.type	Rapport	fr
dc.type	Informe	es
dspace.entity.type	Publication
okr.date.disclosure	2022-05-16
okr.guid	099007107072234307
okr.identifier.doi	10.1596/978-1-4648-1735-9
okr.identifier.report	173783
okr.language.supported	en
okr.region.administrative	Middle East and North Africa
okr.region.geographical	Middle East
okr.region.geographical	North Africa
okr.topic	Poverty Reduction::Employment and Shared Growth
okr.topic	Social Protections and Labor::Employment and Unemployment
okr.topic	Social Development::Social Conflict and Violence
okr.topic	Social Protections and Labor::Labor Markets
okr.unit	MNACE

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Jobs Undone: Reshaping the Role of Governments toward Markets and Workers in the Middle East and North Africa