TITLE:
Unemployment among Young Graduates in Algeria: A Sociological Reading
AUTHORS:
Mohamed Madoui
KEYWORDS:
Algeria, Labor Market, Unemployment, Young Graduate, Collective Action
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.3 No.11,
November
11,
2015
ABSTRACT: In the Maghreb region, the unemployment rate of young university graduates is greater than 30% in Morocco , 30.5% in Tunisia and 22% in Algeria (the official figures for 2014 give us 10%), which is to say that the issue of unemployment is at the heart of social movements. This phenomenon, which was already at the heart of the Tunisian revolution, has only worsened since then. We can still recall without difficulty the story of Mohamed Bouazizi, a young graduate selling fruits and vegetables as a street vendor, who set himself on fire in late 2010, preferring death to the social degradation and the disdain with which public authorities looked upon an entire generation of youth whose only expectation was decent work. Unemployed graduates have therefore begun organizing, notably by creating associations to inform public opinion and public authorities about the precarious nature of the current situation and about the continued risk to social cohesion. This article will touch upon three essential points, which are the following: first, an overview of the Algerian labor market will bring to light the characteristics of the working population and the problem of unemployment among young graduates; second, I will take up the issue of how unemployment is experienced and what work means for youth having invested in university study; in the third and final part, I will take up the issue of collective action and forms of mobilization among the unemployed in a country where oil income is used to buy social harmony, and where authorities go to great lengths to defuse the collective struggle of unemployed graduates throughout the country, on some occasions resorting to the use of force, and on others resorting instead to the instrumentalization and discrediting of advocacy organizations for the unemployed.