Myanmar's Future Jobs

Abstract

Excellent administrative support was provided by Khay Mar San and Corinne Bernaldez. The reports was prepared under the guidance of Victoria Kwakwa, Vice President for East Asia and Pacific; Ulrich Zachau and Ellen Goldstein (former and current Country Directors for Myanmar), Abdoulaye Seck and Gevorg Sargsyan (former and current Country Managers for Myanmar) and Jehan Arulpragasm and Philip O'Keefe (social protection sector managers) at the World Bank. The preparation benefitted from detailed peer review guidance provided by Tom Farole, Gabriel Demombynes, Parmesh Shah, and Maryla Maliszewska as well as Lars Sondergaard, Shabih Mohib, Rawang Rojvanit, and many colleagues at the World Bank who provided insights, suggestions, and improvements to the report process and the final document. The team wishes to thank the participants in numerous consultation meetings with the Ministries of Planning and Finance; Labor, Immigration and Population; Agriculture, Livestock, and Irrigation; and Commerce as well as the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry. We are particularly grateful for their written comments on the final draft of the report. The report also benefitted from broad consultations with civil society, the Myanmar academic community, the private sector, and international development partners. The team is deeply grateful to Dr. Sean Turnell and the Myanmar Development Institute for their gentle guidance throughout the process. Myanmar's Future Jobs: Embracing Modernity Main Report 1 ABOUT THIS REPORT Jobs are a priority policy area for Myanmar. Myanmar has enjoyed rapid economic growth and structural transformation in recent years. This has been accompanied by an expansion of jobs in the private domestic sector, but given the magnitude of the number of jobs in Myanmar-more than 24 million-the new sectors have made only a small dent in expanding job quantity or quality. Economic growth and private sector development are necessary, but not sufficient, to create the jobs that Myanmar needs. The jobs picture in Myanmar is complex. More than one-third of workers own a family farm, and another 16 percent are agricultural laborers. Another one in four people own their own non-farm household businesses. Among wage earners who do not work in agriculture, half are in small firms-and thus are likely to receive few worker protections-while the other half work in large, domestic or foreign private sector firms or in government jobs. This heterogeneous job picture requires heterogeneous solutions. The challenge for some job sectors (such as large private sector firms) is to increase the number of jobs, while for others, (such as farms or household enterprises) it is to increase workers' productivity and jobs quality-which might even lead to fewer, yet better, jobs in these job sectors.

Preferences for pandemic recovery policies: Perspectives of Myanmar agri‐food system participants

“…Decisions on the type and scope of recovery measures post‐urgency are often continued to be made with no voice or representation of the views of intended beneficiaries—that is, country's citizens. In Myanmar, the agri‐food sector, inclusive of producers, input distributors, agro‐processors, traders, and retailers, employs approximately 50% of the population (Cunningham & Munoz, 2018). This means that half the population impacted by CERP are persons associated with the agri‐food sector.…”