This Selected Issues paper tries to answer the question of how to promote employment in Uganda. It also discusses key stylized facts including labor market challenges, an overview of the labor market, and employment characteristics. Although issues relating to the determinants of employment are gaining momentum in Uganda, the literature is largely based on economic reports and qualitative studies. Uganda has implemented some social programs aimed at creating employment specifically for youth and women, though coverage is limited. These programs aim at providing an enabling environment for the private sector to create jobs and build the skills and requisite knowledge to make youth and women more employable. The existing social programs are good initiatives to address some of the labor market issues, though their coverage remains limited with funding constraints identified as one of the main challenges. Creating quality jobs will require comprehensive policies to promote headline growth and ensure inclusive growth, including measures to improve education and address challenges in gender and youth.
How much of an internal rate of return would a sustainable pay-as-you-go pension system offer current and future generations equally? The answer is the sum of the Long-Run Biological Interest Rates (LBIR), the real-world equivalent of Samuelson’s (1958) biological interest rate, and future productivity growth. Reflecting global population ageing, the median LBIR across 172 countries is as low as 1 percent per year. The LBIRs are particularly low in advanced countries, estimated to be negative in many of them, and require ample financial reserves today or future productivity growth to maintain participation in pension schemes. On the other hand, the LBIRs in less developed regions, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, are relatively high, indicating a potential to use a pay-as-you-go scheme to expand the coverage of public pensions. Raising the retirement age by five years brings up the LBIR by 40 basis points, significantly improving the long-run budget constraint of a pension scheme.