Free, but Unemployed, in Tunisia

 SIDI BOUZID, TUNISIA — Houcim Hani stood on Sunday in this central Tunisian city a few steps away from the spot where the 26-year-old street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire on the morning of Dec. 17 last year, and recalled the events that ushered in the revolt now known as the Arab Spring.

He recalled, too, his own son’s attempt at self-immolation.

“He lost the sight in one eye and is now waiting to have an operation,” said Mr. Hani, adding that the 18-year-old student’s suicide attempt was born from “dissatisfaction” about the future.

“A lot of young people have tried to follow Bouazizi,” he said.

Mr. Bouazizi, who died in early January, is now a martyr on the dusty streets of Sidi Bouzid, where walls have been painted with slogans like “Stand Up for Your Rights” and commemorative plaques proclaiming “Liberté” have been nailed to bus shelters.

Still, five months after the popular uprising that led to the ousting of the former dictator, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, there are signs that the early euphoria is diminishing.

In a protest over the lack of jobs, the root cause of the uprising, graduating students have glued their diplomas — about a dozen of them — to the entrance of the town’s municipal offices.

Locals say Mr. Bouazizi, who had worked at several jobs since he was 10, may never have intended to kill himself — that his death resulted from a protest gesture that went wrong.

Still, suicide has become a frequent occurrence in Sidi Bouzid, and throughout the country, since he died. According to a recent report in Le Temps, a French-language newspaper, there have been 111 self-inflicted deaths since January, 69 of them by self-immolation and 58 by people aged 15 to 25.

“A young man I knew threw himself from a building,” said Ahmed Cherih, speaking outside a cafe in Sidi Bouzid.

“The only winners in this revolution are the police,” said Mr. Cherih, 39, who described himself as a graduate who had been without a job for years. “They earn even more money now, but we have nothing.”

At a Tunisian investment forum in Tunis last week, politicians, foreign dignitaries and business executives discussed how to create the economic prosperity needed to underpin a successful transition to democracy.

While the issue of the current rash of suicides was missing from the debate, Mustapha Kamel Nabli, governor of the Central Bank of Tunisia, warned that the gap between the expectations of educated young Tunisians and what the economy could offer them had deepened since the revolution.

The ongoing conflict in neighboring Libya has not helped, he noted.

Despite hopes for stronger medium- to long-term growth and pledges of billions of dollars in international financial aid, the current business climate “is deteriorating,” Mr. Nabli said.

“Some companies have offered their staff a salary increase, but this is not the majority,” he added. And before things get better, “more youth will be on the job market looking for solutions to their problems.”

“If there are no job opportunities the political transition will be questioned by the youth,” Mr. Nabli said. “Foreign investors must act quickly.”

An estimated 80,000 university graduates are due to come onto the job market this year.

Tunisia is counting on foreign investment in sectors like tourism, agriculture, renewable energy and textiles to help reverse its economic slide. And its interim government is keenly aware that the outside world is watching the country for clues to the future of the Arab Spring.

“If democratic change doesn’t succeed in Tunisia, then it has no hope of doing so elsewhere,” Beji Caid-Essebi, the interim prime minister, said in an opening speech to the forum.

Tunisia is on track toward a major milestone in its transition to democracy, with legislative elections scheduled for October.

On the economic front, Mr. Caid-Essebi said the country would do its best to ensure that the “climate is favorable to those who want to come and do business here.”

 But political and economical reforms may not be enough to create and sustain jobs, said some executives at the conference. A sea change in the mentality of young job seekers will be critical to ensuring any real progress, they said.

One of the legacies of the Ben Ali era is an overeducated youth with high expectations. Critics say the former government encouraged young people to collect multiple diplomas as a way to keep them off the job market, while ignoring the real needs of the economy.

“The problem in all countries in North Africa is that education has no connection with the needs of business,” said Adrian Savulescu, a German businessman and chief executive of Prasav, a consulting firm.

Mr. Savulescu cited a dire shortage of plumbers, carpenters and electricians. “German firms, for example, can’t use most graduates,” he said. “There is no point hiring someone from a big university who can’t mend a sewing machine. It’s easier for them to hire untrained, unspoiled people and train them up for two or three years.”

Radhouane Ben Farhat is a 28-year-old who worked while studying for a degree. He says that experience helped him find a job as a consultant at Eco-presence, an environmental consulting agency.

Mr. Ben Farhat agrees that the education system “badly evaluated the market’s demands.” The result, he said, is a generation that, even when it finds a job, often does not stick with it, and is poorly prepared for workplace discipline.

“I always worked during my studies,” he said, but “the majority of students were more interested in partying or going on holiday.”

Still, that may be changing in the new Tunisia. “I want to be an accountant, like my father,” said Oussama Cherni, 18, who hopes to study economics at university but in the meantime is gaining workplace experience at his brother’s jewelry shop in the bustling souk of the Tunis medina.

Mr. Cherni realizes he is one of the lucky ones.

“If it doesn’t work out as an accountant, I can always work for my brother,” he said. “But some of my friends from my district, who have diplomas, have had to go to places like Italy and France to find work.”        

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