Cafes in Tunisia have become a common hangout for unemployed college graduates, but now that educated youth may be able to get back to work. Photo: Flickr (clurross)

Sitting in cafes all over Tunisia are unemployed youth with college degrees and nothing better to do.

Tunisia's recent revolution left it with skyrocketing unemployment and an economic collapse. Libya, Tunisia’s neighbor, finds itself in a similarly precarious situation. Their crucial difference is that while Tunisia is relatively developed, Libya has no working infrastructure. And ironically, it is this lack of infrastructure that provides the solution to both countries' problems.

Following the wake of Tunisia’s President Ben Ali stepping down and the death of Libya’s Qaddafi, the nations’ new governments are hoping to set up more open ways of conducting business. Previously full of government corruption and theft, transparent business practices will allow both countries to allow the creation of companies that address the people’s interests rather than the government’s. Tunisia and Libya’s citizens are taking advantage of this change, and are already creating businesses aimed at building the desperately needed infrastructure in Libya that Qaddafi never developed. This will, in turn, relieve the strain on Tunisia’s hospitals and other infrastructure, which are currently working at double capacity. According to Tunisian economist Moncef Cheikhrouhou, the rebuilding of Libya could provide jobs for 250,000 Tunisians, all while developing lasting economic ties between the nations and creating the building blocks for Libya’s economy to sustain itself.

The new opportunities for growth and economic connection also have a broader appeal. In the post-Arab Spring Middle East, the example these two struggling countries provide sets the pace for a region full of economic growth potential.

Prior to the Arab Spring, the Middle East economy neglected to build privatized business connections within the region. Ben Ali aligned Tunisia with Europe and Qaddafi kept Libya isolated. When regional investment did occur, it was often corrupt. Libya and Tunisia are both poised to set the example for regional cooperation in an area where business connections are rare, and their timing couldn’t be better. Recent Citibank rankings have placed two other Middle Eastern countries—Egypt and Iraq—as nations with the greatest potential for growth in the next 40 years. Investment in these growing economies would benefit all involved. This closer connection with up-and-coming neighbor economies is particularly important as Tunisia’s long-standing ties to faltering economies like those of Italy and Greece seem to be deteriorating.

With a lot of work cut out for them in the months and years ahead, it looks like as many as a quarter of a million Tunisians could finally leave the cafes and get back to work. Jobs, opportunities, and examples for their Middle Eastern neighbors may follow.

Zambikes team members at the factory in Zambia holding one of their bamboo bicycles. Photo:Zambikes.org

*This article was republished by The Christian Science Monitor.*

Zambikes has been helping Africans get around on locally-made bikes since 2007. Now they want to get the rest of the world rolling, too, but with a twist: these new cycles are almost 100 percent bamboo.

Zambia, where Zambikes is based, ranks a staggeringly low 150 out of 169 on the UNDP’s Human Development Index. Vaughn Spethmann and Dustin McBride witnessed the company’s dire economic straits and high unemployment rate first-hand during a 2004 university trip and founded Zambikes upon their return to the U.S., according to The American. Believing business to be the best way to remedy the country’s woes, they wanted their new company to “employ and empower the uneducated and underprivileged,” Spethmann told Social Capital Markets Europe. Spethmann says that as of May 2011, "Zambikes has distributed more than 8,000 bicycles, 900 bicycle ambulances and cargo carts, supplied much-needed spare parts, sold upwards of 200 bamboo bicycle frames worldwide and have employed more than 100 Zambians." Zambians who use the cargo cart can increase daily earning from $2 a day to $20, he said.

Zambikes wants to expand overseas, and they plan to do so sustainably. In addition to the metal bikes they produce in Africa, they now export bamboo bicycles to the United States. Bamboo is exceedingly easy to grow and can shoot up 2 inches an hour under the right conditions, according to PlanetGreen.com. It’s flexible and light, and the bikes made from it can be put together using basic tools and machinery, according to the BBC. Some might question the structural integrity of a bamboo bicycle, but the bikes’ proponents say they’re just as sturdy as the traditional metal frames. The Guardian’s GreenLiving Blog took one of Calfee’s bamboo models out for a spin in 2009 and found that it was comfortable, with great shock absorption. If you need to see it to believe it, check out this video of three large men piling onto a bamboo bike made in Ghana.

Zambikes isn’t the only company getting in on the action, though. Bamboosero and the Bamboo Bike Project are also trying to help Africans ride to economic prosperity. Now those in the market for a shiny new cycle can get a killer set of wheels and help support African entrepreneurs, too.

Margo Conner is a senior at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, majoring in international affairs. Read her other contributions to Global Envision.

Today, college graduation lacks some of the promise it normally holds but some grads are taking the initiative and making it work. Photo: inorman88 (flickr)

You've probably heard something along the lines of "get an education and you'll make more money," at least once in your life.

And for the most part, it's true. Higher education and university degrees are linked to higher salaries, greater lifetime earnings, and lower unemployment rates. This correlation is corroborated by data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which shows that individuals who possess a doctoral degree faced an unemployment rate of a mere 2.5 percent in 2009, compared with an unemployment rate of 14.6 percent for those who did not finish high school.

Yet, the current job market is still tough for college graduates, and as a recent USA Today article reports, "the jobless rate for Americans with at least a bachelor's degree rose to 5.1 percent, the highest since 1970 when records were first kept." (This number has since declined. As of January 2011, the unemployment rate for those with a bachelor's degree or more is down to 4.2 percent according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Still, employment prospects for many new college graduates are bleak. A press release from the National Association of Colleges and Employers describes the job situation for the class of 2010.

...[only] one-quarter (24.4 percent) of 2010 graduates who applied for a job actually have one waiting for them after graduation. In comparison, just 19.7 percent of 2009 graduates who applied for a job had one at this time last year.

This may be a consequence of older workers holding onto their jobs a little longer, postponing retirement in order to ensure they will have enough to live on after they leave the labor force, a recent The New York Times article asserts.

So what are young workers to do, when there just aren’t jobs opening up for them and the national unemployment rate hovers between 9 and 10 percent?

According to a different The New York Times article, some recent grads are making their own jobs, building businesses from scratch and employing themselves.

These young college graduates are trying something new, making up for their lack of experience with pluck and drive. The New York Times article mentions Scott Gerber, a young entrepreneur who opted to start his own company to "...encourage young people to start their own companies — instead of trying to land a job." His nonprofit is called the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), and provides funding and mentorship to young entrepeneurs.

These desperate times call for creative measures. And who knows, maybe this new generation of entrepreneurs is just what we need to give our economy a push in the right direction.

Black males have the highest unemployement rate in the U.S. Photo: Jaci Berkopec (flickr)

Men — and black men in particular — are being disproportionately affected by the economic downturn in the U.S. According to statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor, the unemployment rate for black men is nearly 19 percent, Latino men come in at 12.8 percent and white men at 10.4 percent. The national unemployment rate reached 10 percent in November.

The Economist explores why jobs are more scarce for black men than other groups in a recent article.

There is no shortage of explanations for the gap. States with weaker labor markets, like South Carolina and Michigan, also tend to have larger black populations than low-unemployment states like Iowa and Montana.

Predominantly black neighborhoods are often a long way from where jobs are concentrated, in largely white suburbs, so those without cars cannot get to them.

Networking is another important factor in finding a new job. The Economist points out that black men aren't finding jobs through personal contacts as often as white or Latino men.

November's Comment of the Month was sent in by Sarah Standish of Portland, Oregon. Sarah commented on Alok Amatya's post Dairy Cows Fight Terrorism in Fallujah. She offers an alternate look at the relationship between job creation and terrorism. Sarah also wisely points out the need to look at more than one source of information before drawing conclusions. For her efforts, we will make a $25 donation to a project of her choice on Global Giving.

This Wall Street Journal blog post mentions that one study suggested that job creation may not necessarily reduce terrorist attacks:

When unemployment declined in Iraq and the Philippines, violence increased. The scholars say that one reason for this is that government forces may be able to pay off locals for tips on guerrillas more cheaply when unemployment is high. Another possibility is military crackdowns may increase unemployment, because communities are walled off, but reduce attacks by insurgents.

These ideas should definitely provoke us to think carefully about the relationship between violence and job creation, but I don't think they present any compelling reasons to stop focusing on job creation. It sounds to me like the authors have noticed an interesting phenomenon but don't know quite how to explain it yet. In a complicated issue like this one, a single study is probably not enough to draw any absolute conclusions.

Keep writing in and share your though-provoking comments for a chance to win $25 towards the well-deserving charity of your choice!

* Lest anyone think $25 is not a lot, consider these figures from our affiliate Mercy Corps: $25 delivers clean, safe drinking water to 50 people in one of eastern Congo's sprawling displacement camps. $25 provides seeds to farmers in cyclone-devastated areas of Myanmar to plant five acres of rice. $25 gives traumatized children in Darfur 12 weeks of activities and psychological care to help them heal.

Officially, Detroit's unemployment rate is 27 percent. But this number doesn't factor in people that are underemployed or are unemployed and have given up on the job search more than a year ago. In reality, the Detroit News says, unemployment is closer to 45 percent if you factor in these groups. That's nearly half of the motor city's workers.

Detroit mayor Dave Bing commented on the situation in a statement for the Detroit News:

Jobs are the key to revitalizing Detroit ... The statistics tell part of the story, but we can't run from the reality that the need for jobs and investment is far greater than any statistic could measure.

A Detroit street. Photo: NoneOther... {Captured In Lights}...(flickr)

Severe unemployment threatens security gains made in the last few years. Photo: Dogon56 (flickr)

Security in Iraq is undoubtedly improving, but rising unemployment threatens to increase instability and worsen corruption, according to Iraq expert Frank Gunter.

Gunter, who's done two tours in Iraq as an economics adviser, points out in a recent op-ed in the New York Times that 51 percent of the population — and an even greater percentage of young people — is either unemployed or underemployed.

Almost half of the country’s labor force is paid by the government from its revenues from petroleum exports. With the exception of agriculture, legitimate private-sector employment is small — by my calculations, about 6 percent of the labor force. Most of the remainder of the Iraqi labor force is either unemployed or working in the underground economy.

Gunter further laments that any business faces either the inefficiencies of the underground economy or the corrupt ministries that regulate them. (Iraq was just listed among the top five most corrupt countries in the world.) The process to register a new business is expensive and complicated — a license costs $2,800 and requires approval from 12 different ministries.

"The potential for private sector job growth is great," Gunter writes. So what needs to be done? The number-one thing, Gunter says, is to make it easier and less expensive to register a new business. He also recommends that provinces, rather than Baghdad, set rules for regulating businesses.

But whatever is decided, the government of Iraq is running out of time. It must either end its hostility toward private businesses — or accept that a sharply growing mass of unemployed will nullify the progress of the last three years.

A street dentist in India. Photo: Christian Luna (flickr)

Would you want an unlicensed dentist working on your teeth?

You might if, like many of India’s poor, you lacked the money to see a professional. By your willingness to pay for these services, you’d also be creating a kind of employment for someone who could never find work in a traditional medical office.

Workers like these amateur dentists are part of India's informal sector, made up of the small-business employees like cleaners, agricultural workers, and hawkers of street goods who work for cash without a contract or benefits. Although India is best-known for its high-tech economy, the Indian government estimates that more than 93 percent of Indian workers are informally employed.

The informal sector didn't benefit much from India's tech boom, but its extra-stretchy quality actually makes India's economy stronger, says businessman Semil Shah. Why? For starters, he explains, the informal economy "provides markets for goods and services that may not have been otherwise traded." Others also see the the informal economy as a safety net for workers, since it gives more work possibilities to those who've lost jobs in the formal sector. Because of this, the informal sector may help sustain India through the global economic crisis, reports CNN.

However, maintaining a large informal economy isn't the long-term answer for India's poor, many researchers say. Life in the informal sector is harsh, since employment is often uncertain and poorly-paid. Moreover, working conditions aren't always good and competition can be stiff, especially when workers from the formal sector flood back in. Without a safety net of their own, informal workers hit the ground hard when they fall.

Despite all the drawbacks, many out-of-work Indians would probably agree that the uncertainty of informal work trumps the certainty of no work at all.

What will the growth of the Mongolian mining industry mean for the country's nomadic herders? Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Mongolia could soon be home to the largest copper mine in the world.

After years of negotiations, Western mining companies Rio Tinto and Ivanhoe are close to reaching an agreement with the Mongolian parliament to develop significantly the Oyu Tolgoi mine. Mineweb reports that the untapped deposit contains 78 billion pounds of copper and 45 million ounces of gold. If all goes to plan, the massive investment would double the size of Mongolia's economy and create thousands of jobs, according to NPR.

The economic crisis has hit Mongolia harder than most countries in East Asia. One in four people are out of work, NPR reports. The country’s nomadic herders – 40 percent of the population – are struggling after the price of cashmere dramatically declined earlier this year (see Manasi Sharma’s Downturn in the Gobi). Now, some are hailing Oyu Tolgoi as an immediate economic fix.

But there are several obvious challenges. First, Mongolia is highly corrupt. It is ranked 102 out of 180 countries in the latest Transparency International index, an annual rating of perceived levels of corruption (defined as the abuse of public office for private gain). Additionally, the editorial in Mineweb suggests that Russia and China may have inordinate influence over Mongolia’s mining industry. Given these two factors, how much will the average Mongolian gain?

Lastly, there are the social implications of this investment to consider. For many nomadic herders, shifting to industrial mining jobs is far from ideal, but there isn’t much else to turn to. People are desperate now that raw cashmere and other materials do not provide a reliable way to feed and clothe families. "They are losing their land, their animals, and even their culture," reported NPR’s Louisa Lim, "for a few specks of gold."

As unemployment increases worldwide, countries are looking at ways to stop the bleeding. Spain, Japan and the Czech Republic have decided to pay unemployed immigrants to return to their homelands.

Spain is offering immigrants from outside Europe an average of $18,500 in unemployment benefits to leave. The government is hoping to lower its 17.4 percent unemployment rate, the highest in Europe. Those who take the deal get 40 percent up front, 60 percent once they arrive in their countries of origin. They can't reapply for work visas in Spain for three years.

Japan is offering a one-time payment of 300,000 yen (about $3,100) to South American factory workers of Japanese descent who buy a plane ticket home, plus an additional sum for each dependent. Immigrants taking the deal agree not to "return until economic and employment conditions improve." Japan's unemployment benefits pay nearly $2,100 per month. So, unemployed immigrants could theoretically make more money without a job in Japan than they would by taking the offer to leave.

The Czech government will provide unemployed non-EU citizens with a ticket home plus 500 Euros — more if the worker has young children, reports the Wall Street Journal. When the program started, there were no restrictions on when a worker could return. On April 1, however, the Czech Republic stopped issuing work visas for five countries including Mongolia, whose citizens represent two-thirds of those in the pay-to-leave program.

Impacts on unemployment have been negligible at best. The Czech Interior Ministry says that their program has been a success: it's filled nearly 65 percent of its 2,000-person quota. Still, that number is less than 1 percent of all unemployed workers. The 4,000 people who've accepted Spain's offer is far from the government's goal of 100,000. And fewer than 400 people have applied for the program in Japan.

It seems that many immigrants are choosing to weather the economic storm where they are. Their chances of gainful employment in the country they left must not be any better.

I don't think anyone would say it's easy to tell someone they no longer have a job. Especially Shelly Polum, an executive with Ram Tool, a small tool-and-die-cast manufacturer in Grafton, Wisconsin. In an audio slide show on the New York Times website, Shelly reflects on the emotional toll of saying to people she's worked with for years: "I'm laying you off."

Many New Yorkers line up for a tasty and inexpensive snack at one of the city's many street carts. Photo: btorzyn (flickr)

Job losses in New York City has created a black market in a commodity you might not expect: street vending permits.

In a city with rising unemployment —the rate was 8.1 percent in March, nearly twice the rate of a year earlier — some New Yorkers are turning to street vending to make ends meet, Jennifer 8. Lee reports in City Room, a The New York Times blog.

A black market has developed because New York City caps the number of vending permits it issues, and nowadays far more people want to be street vendors than there are permits available.

Some of the city's existing permit holders have realized the potential profits in selling their permits. The going price of one is about $8,000 to $12,000, Lee notes. Sales have been brisk: "[A]bout two-thirds of permits are not even used by the original owner," she writes.

More than 700,000 unemployed workers could see their benefits run out before the end of the year. Congress more than doubled unemployment benefits last year to 59 weeks in order to prevent this from happening. But with 4.1 workers per available job, it's harder now than ever for people to find work.

History tells us that the numbers are likely to get much worse — even after the recession ends. In the two previous U.S. recessions (1990-91 and 2001), unemployment continued to rise up to a year after economic recovery began.

So when can we expect the economy to improve? The National Bureau of Economic Research says recessions end when economic activity bottoms out. Bernard Baumhol, an economist with the Economic Outlook Group, thinks it's going to take some time before Americans see unemployment decline:

What comes next, I'm afraid, will be the mother of all jobless recoveries. While we may emerge from recession from a statistical standpoint later this year, most Americans will be hard-pressed to tell the difference between a recession and a recovery the next 12 months.

Economist David Resler compares recovery to a boxing match: "Even if you win the fight, it's not going to feel as good when you get out of the ring as when you went in."

The recently passed economic stimulus provides for up to another 20 weeks of unemployment benefits. But nearly a quarter of unemployed workers have now been out of work for at least six months. If that trend worsens, unemployment benefits are bound to expire for thousands more.

So how do these workers cope after their unemployment benefits run out? Some rely on food stamps and other social programs for help. Many live off of savings or help from family members; some even move in with them. Some are patching together part-time jobs, while still others see their situation as an opportunity to learn new job skills.

Most, however, simply want to find a steady job — any job. Pittsburgh resident Sterling Long echoes these sentiments. "I got no pride as long as the people in this house eat, have hot water — that's all I need."

(New York Financial Press video)

Hostage takings, vandalism and attempted assault sound like charges on a rap sheet for a hardened criminal. But they're the collective crimes of people who've been laid off recently.

Workers in the French factories for 3M and Sony — enraged about the size of severance packages for laid-off workers — held their bosses captive last month. The captured CEOs actually ended up bargaining with the kidnappers, while the police — not wanting to incense the workers even more — promptly responded by doing ...nothing.

Just last week, workers at a Caterpillar plant in France held their bosses captive as well. They, too, were looking for better treatment for laid-off coworkers. In another incident, workers at the French luxury retail company PPR surrounded their CEO's car and blocked roads so he couldn't escape. This time police did intervene and escorted François-Henri Pinault to safety.

Across the Channel in the United Kingdom, people are outraged with the multimillion dollar pension package given to former Royal Bank of Scotland CEO Fred Goodwin. One group was so upset that it vandalized Sir Goodwin's house and car.

An ominous e-mail from the vandals threatened more attacks:

We are angry that rich people, like him, are paying themselves a huge amount of money, and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless. This is a crime. Bank bosses should be jailed. This is just the beginning.

Joining in the spirit of protest, as many as 5,000 protesters gathering in London's financial district on the first day of the G-20 summit, expressing discontent over the financial crisis, climate change and war. Several demonstrators threw projectiles and forced their way into an RBS branch through broken windows.

Bert Klandermans, a professor of applied social psychology at Amsterdam's Free University, offers a psychological explanation for why some people are expressing their frustration in this way.

Anger is an emotion that spurs collective action ... [It's] an emotion that results from feeling that somebody is responsible for something, and could have acted differently ... [For many] the bankers did it wrong, and they did it wrong because they were greedy. That's what makes people angry.

Frustrated by executive compensation and the economy, protesters broke windows of an RBS branch in London. Photo: Camus Live Art (flickr)

A man cooks over a wood-burning fire in Kibera. Over 1 million working poor live in Kibera, with few opportunities to make a comfortable living. Photo: Crissy Olson (flickr)

Even UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was surprised by the large number of people who greeted him in Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya. But his surprise quickly became concern when he was told so many young people came to see him because they couldn't find work.

Inspired to act, Ban donated $100,000 of his own money to a UN-sponsored program that helps unemployed youth acquire vocational skills like carpentry, masonry, electrical wiring, plumbing and management. It's called the Youth Empowerment Program (YEP).

Students learn their trade through hands-on activities as they build a training facility that will allow YEP to expand its participant ranks. After graduation, many of the youth are placed in jobs or apprenticeships with private companies or UN-sponsored construction projects in Kibera.

The training program is part of a greater state- and UN-sponsored initiative to upgrade services and infrastructure in Nairobi's slums. Youth skills training also complements another UN-funded effort, the Urban Entrepreneurship Program, that helps to establish construction collectives and aid them in bidding on contracts.

Linus Sijenji, a youth coordinator in Kibera, notes that the combined efforts of the two programs are inspiring the youth and have opened up opportunities for them.

Our aim is to form our own companies that could competitively bid for such contracts on equal level with big companies. Much as this might seem far fetched, the idea is viable, especially with more training opportunities and resources like bank loans.

If these programs work as advertised, Ban will get an even bigger reception next time he comes to Kibera.