Uzbekistan Quality Job Creation as a Cornerstone for Sustainable Economic Growth

Figure 1.14: Official Reserves, Uzbekistan,
January 2013–December 2018
$ Billion
1/13
1/14
1/15
1/16
1/17
1/19 9/18
0
5
10
15
20
25 
30 

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Uzbekistan Quality Job Creation as a Cornerstone for Sustainable Economic Growth
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1.5. Job Creation
The labor market is Uzbekistan’s greatest challenge and opportunity at the 
same time. Estimated 500,000 individuals will enter the labor force every 
year until 2030. The age dependency ratio has been falling continuously 
since 2000 and is expected to remain unusually low in the coming decades 
(Figure 1.15). Also, about 2.6 million migrant workers are employed, often 
on uncertain terms and with limited rights, in the Russian Federation alone. 
Successfully integrating job seekers into the labor market will help Uzbekistan 
achieve upper-middle-income status in the near future. However, the country 
so far has not seized this unique opportunity as annual employment growth 
averaged only 0.75% during 2015–2017, while in 2018–2019 employment is 
expected to expand by only 1% (IMF 2018). Such sluggish employment growth 
rates are not enough to absorb the yearly increase in the labor supply. There is 
thus the danger of rising unemployment, labor migration, and dissatisfaction, 
especially among the youth. 
What explains the low employment growth numbers? An important factor is 
likely to be the steep decline in exports of manufactures in recent years, as 
discussed in the previous section. This decline hindered the creation of urgently 
needed high-quality jobs. At the same time, the capital-intensive resources 
sector, which only offers limited employment opportunities, has expanded 
substantially. Indeed, in the mid-2000s when manufacturing was expanding 
more rapidly than the resource sector, employment growth exceeded 3%. 
But there are also other reasons. The World Bank (2018) finds that the labor 
intensity of the manufacturing sector has decreased over time and that this 
Source: World Bank. World Development Indicators. http://www.databank.worldbank.org/ (accessed
11 November 2019).