11,000 graduate to 83% joblessness

As the first batch of 11,022 students graduated at Makerere University yesterday, the hostile economic environment that offers no immediate prospects for jobs was upper most in the minds of many.

Save for years when the country was facing civil conflicts, not many graduates have emerged from the awards ceremony to a stressed economy where jobs are as depressed as this year.

International pressures that saw the global economy shrink starting from 2008 and domestic factors have conspired to create possibly the worst conditions for fresh job seekers trying to enter the market.

With down-town traders on strike and those who graduated before them but unable to find jobs, graduates wondered what the world out there holds for them. “Most of us don’t have rich parents to take us to their offices to work as their assistants so we don’t know when we will land our first jobs but we will keep trying hard because we know that it is better trying than never,” said Zaidi Tebazaalwa, who graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Zoology. He hopes to work at least as a research assistant for his first job.

While Isaac Kirabwa was more direct in his appreciation of the situation. “This is just the beginning,” he said. “And as you know Uganda’s jobs, it is always difficult to find one and when many people find it, it is always hard for them to leave such jobs leaving the young people like us to be on the streets

Daily Monitor