conclusiones actividad

According to the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) (2010) Libya has a small population (6.545.6m) and vast wealth (oil), and has reasonable levels of achievements in its education, health care and social-services and self-reliance. In this respect Libya contrasts markedly with many other African/Maghreb countries. But, at the same time, Ogunniyi (1996) pointed out that “due to various socio-economic factors, African countries have not

been able to achieve the goal of self-reliance with respect to scientific and technological human-power development” (Ogunniyi, 1996: 01). Becker, an early proponent of human

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capital, went further when he observed that “most countries that have a large supply of oil

are wasting their resources” (Becker, 1975:03). In order to overcome these problems the

Libyan government has embraced its twin strategy of opening up to the MOWS and developing its human capital resources as a means of making itself an attractive place to invest (Otman and Karlberg , 2007; Black, 2007; and NESR, 2006). Nonetheless the existing skills gap is particularly acute for the Libyan private sector which often faces the difference between the skills required in the job market and the skills that Libyan workers have (NESR, 2006; Otman and Karlberg, 2007). For example, regarding the job seekers of the university graduates and the private sector requirements in Libya, a question was given to Mr Akerm50 as the manager of one of these private companies,

―Nowadays in Libya and more specifically in my company when interviewing graduates who have applied for a job, the first thing to be asked about is her/his level of English and computer skills, and the English is most important. Moreover, as a multi-operational company we must have engineers who are highly qualified in English. Because our operations are in English, and most of the terminologies we use are in English, and do not have Arabic translations. We therefore rely on the engineer and the knowledge and proficiency in English language and to solve such a problem we do employ some foreign workers51 who are qualified and mainly have English language skills‖.

Furthermore, Mr, Akrem went on to explain that many Libyan businessmen and foreign investors in the private sector are still hesitant about investment due to their lack of trust in the government, fearing that its policies could as easily change back to state control and lose them their capital and property. This lack of trust in the Libyan government is a big problem for the new vision strategy and reflects long-standing and understandable scepticism about the government‟s commitment to policies that have been regarded for a long time as anathema to its ideological outlook (Gaddafi, 2005; St. John, 2008).

50 _{Individual interview with Mr, Akrem was made in 24/03/2009, the manager of Al-Manar Company for Construction in} Libya

51_{He stated “in the civil engineering department we do have foreign employees from different countries such as; 3 German} engineers, 3 Tunisians, 12 Jordanians, 12 Egyptians, and 1 Nigerian. In fact, the foreign employees we have are much more than our employees from Libya”.

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Although the NES (2006) acknowledges that the private sector in Libya has faced numerous problems, most notably, that they do not have the active support of the government, and this has been changing. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF, 2006) Libya has achieved a notable improvement in its private sector (Alafi and de Bruijn, 2010). Alafi and de Bruijn (2010:12) stated that:

“Notable progress has been made on various structural reforms, tariff rates were

reduced, resulting in a decline in the simple average tariff to 17.8 percent. This makes it far easier for foreign investments and capital to enter the country. The trade regime was simplified by cutting half the consumption tax rate on imported goods. The state import monopolies were also reduced to petroleum products and weaponry. The list of prohibited import (40 items) was scaled down to less than ten products. The government intend to keep the import bans only for religious and health reasons.‖

They added: ―that private sector can freely import or produce goods that were

previously under public monopoly. Numerous investment agreements with a number of countries have been signed so that to encourage foreign direct investment and harmonise taxes. Infrastructure is also being modernised and free zones are planned. Certification requirements for trade with Maghreb countries have also been simplified‖.

Nonetheless the limited opportunities, so far, for Libyan graduates means that many are seeking their opportunities in the public sector or shadow economy. In particular people who have graduated from some of the practical sciences faculties such as medicine and engineering or who have had a chance to study abroad where their family‟s financial circumstances let him/her to. This point is reinforced by the Libyan representative at the United Nation Information Centre in Libya as she said that:

“Those Libyan who acquired English language skills are the minority who were able to

study abroad or who have the financial capability to cover the expenses of English language courses in Libya. In other words those are the rich people who manage to enrol their kids in foreign schools from the early stages till the higher education.

123 Nevertheless, some of those these rich families can even provide job opportunities for their children to work in foreign companies or embassy offices not for money, but, for the social prestige as interns. Therefore, lower-middle or middle class Libyan graduates who cannot afford to fund these English language courses, would not have the opportunity to work in such places, where they can get high salaries. This has built a huge gap amongst Libyan graduates‖.

These class divisions in Libya are not surprising and reflect the kind of divisions found elsewhere in the MOWS where the wealthy elites use their power to maintain the wealth and status by dominating the best jobs and educational opportunities (Vandewalle, 2006). For the majority, then, the best prospects for employment remain with the state‟s own companies or those in partnership with foreign companies (mainly in the oil sector, embassies, airlines) that such graduates find employment. According to Alafi and de Bruijn (2010:12) “Some key

strategic companies are still earmarked for privatisation, particularly Libyan airlines, public telecommunication company, Brega Petroleum Company, and the electricity distribution network. The stock exchange was established in 2006 and by the end of 2007; seven companies (mostly banks) were listed with a capitalisation of LD1.2 billion”. For example,

the national economic strategy report stated that:

“Engineering and technical skills are an exception to the general shortage of skills,

especially in the energy sector where there are many qualified engineers and technicians. This is due to the demand for such technical people from both state-owned enterprises like the LNOC, and from foreign oil companies, which increases salaries, enabling Libyan oil workers to earn more than the average Libyan” (NESR, 2006:63).

However, the state run companies do not offer the same level of remuneration as that offered by foreign companies and so as a consequence Libyan graduates are failing to maximise their potential earnings. A good comparison of this was at discussion with some employees at the Libyan Foreign Bank where Osama52 said that:

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“In the past one of our staff had good English skills but was not good at her job

technically. Nonetheless, she left the bank to work with the private sector. Now, she obtains one of the highest positions at that company with great salary because of her English language skills‖.

Accordingly, it seems that the private sector and the foreign companies who deal with the private sector in Libya have created their own solutions which are to employ foreign workers to solve the problem of the lack of English skills in the Libyan job market. One example of this is the Al-Manar company which has employed more than 31 out of 50 employees/engineers in the department of civil engineering are non-Libyan because of their English language skill. Thus, some of the private companies in Libya and some foreign investors have adopted this strategy because they know in advance the Libyan graduates lack English language skills.