RESIDENTS of Tataouine, on the edge of the Sahara, think it ought to be a boomtown. The dusty city is close to Tunisia’s oil and gas reserves. But firms do most of their recruiting elsewhere and send their profits away. The local unemployment rate is more than twice the national average of 13%. In April job-seeking protesters shut the main oil pipeline and briefly halted work on Nawara, a big gasfield. Youssef Chahed, the prime minister, was booed off the stage at a town-hall meeting. So the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), the country’s largest, stepped in to mediate. In June it announced a deal: the state would hire another 3,000 workers from the region.
The concession ended the protests. But it was bad policy. The state oil company is already an inefficient mess. Over the past decade its production has fallen by 29%, even though its workforce has grown by 14%. Under the agreement, the government urged private oil and gas firms to hire 1,500 locals, but they do not need the...Continue reading
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