Structure of labour market and unemployment in Sudan

This paper examines the structure of the labour market and unemployment
in Sudan. One advantage of our analysis is that we explain several
stylized facts on the labour market using new secondary data on
population, employment and unemployment based on Sudan Central Bureau of
Statistics (2010) the Fifth Sudan Population and Housing Census (2008).
We explain several stylized facts on the relation between the structure
of the labour market and demographic structure, labour force,
participation rates, economic activities, low skill level and high
unemployment rate defined by gender and mode of living in Sudan.
Different from the findings in the empirical literature in support of
the Phillips curve on the negative correlation between inflation and
unemployment rates, we find a positive and significant correlation
between unemployment and inflation rates in Sudan during the period
2000-2008. Moreover, different from the analysis in Sudanese literature,
we present a more comprehensive analysis of four stylized facts on the
unemployment problem in Sudan, including identifying several types of
unemployment; interpretation of unemployment problems from due to
endogenous and exogenous causes; analysis of the high incidence of
unemployment among youth population and a high mismatch between
educational qualifications (supply) and labour market requirements
(demand). The major policy implication from our findings is that the
unemployment problem is related to endogenous and exogenous causes;
therefore policy interventions for reducing unemployment should deal
with these endogenous and exogenous causes. Notably, improvement of job
creation and quality of educational policies and consistency between
educational qualifications (output) and labour market requirements.
Another major policy implication from our results on the significant
positive correlation between increase in unemployment and inflation
rates (2000-2008), implies that macroeconomic policies aimed at or
targeting reducing inflation rates would also help to reduce
unemployment rates in Sudan.

Keywords: Labour market; employment; unemployment; Sudan.