世界银行-不丹劳动力市场评估报告（英）-2024-181页_2mb

Bhutan's Labor Market Assessment: Summary and Policy Directions

Key Labor Market Challenges:

• High unemployment among educated youth (e.g., college graduates), particularly in urban areas.
• Low female labor force participation due to household responsibilities and limited access to quality jobs.
• Dominance of low-productivity agriculture and public sector employment in the economy.
• Widespread informal employment with poor working conditions prevalent in key sectors like construction and retail trade.
• Significant skill mismatches between TVET offerings and private sector demands.

Private Sector Issues:

• Limited productive opportunities created by Bhutan's private sector.
• High concentration of firms in low-productivity sectors (e.g., wholesale trade, hotels/restaurants).
• Slow structural transformation coupled with inadequate firm dynamism.

Employment Support Program Limitations:

• Employment support programs are small-scale, fragmented, and not effectively linked between different government agencies.
• TVET relevance is limited due to poor employer coordination and inadequate market-responsive curriculum.

Policy Recommendations:

1. Accelerate Job Creation: Focus on vertical growth in job-rich, high-productivity sectors while implementing horizontal reforms to improve the investment climate and labor regulations.
2. Strengthen Economic Inclusion: Develop programs targeting rural workers and improving productivity through climate-smart training and access to markets.
3. Enhance Employment Support Programs: Improve TVET relevance and ESC capacity to bridge skill gaps and facilitate better job matches.
4. Improve Monitoring and Evaluation: Strengthen data collection through a functional LMIS to inform policy decisions and program implementation.

These findings highlight the need for a gender-sensitive, skill-matching, and demand-driven approach to Bhutan's labor market interventions for sustainable and inclusive economic development.