Under the patronage of the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr. Adel Al Tweisi, the Higher Population Council launched a study and policy brief on the “Entrepreneurial Attitudes of Young Labor Market Entrants and the Supporting Institutional Environment in Jordan”.
Prepared by HPC in cooperation with national stakeholders, the study aimed to identify the attitudes of young labor market entrants and the challenges they face in pursuing entrepreneurship as a self-employment option. It also sheds light on the existing pro-entrepreneurship environment, addresses the constraints hindering it and sets forth policies to promote entrepreneurship awareness among youth and overcome the challenges facing national institutions that sponsor entrepreneurship.
In his remarks, minister of higher education and scientific research, Adel Al Tweisi noted that the study has revealed weaknesses in the entrepreneurship sector in Jordan especially with respect to perceptions, attitudes, legislation, and the enabling environment. He added that in the last two years the ministry has been pursuing the goals of the Human Resource Development Strategy (2016-2025) to integrate technology in university education, promote the use of open learning platforms, increase the number of IT and business incubators and business accelerators in universities and technical colleges across the Kingdom to enhance innovative and entrepreneurial thinking among youth. Al Tweisi indicated that, as the study shows, only around 11% of prospective Jordanian graduates of universities, community colleges and training centers have entrepreneurial inclinations. This requires swift measures and projects to raise entrepreneurship awareness, thereby curtailing unemployment rates.
On the other hand, HPC Secretary General, Dr. Abla Amawi, stressed that entrepreneurship is closely linked to HPC’s core mission of proposing population-related policies and directing efforts to achieve the goals of comprehensive economic and social development plans and partnering with stakeholders to provide a suitable environment for investing in the demographic transition in Jordan towards a higher percentage of working-age population.
Amawi explained that in order to address the impending challenges facing the Jordanian society, the productivity and competitiveness of young people in the local, regional and international markets should be increased, their capacities, competencies, skills, expertise and knowledge should be continuously enhanced and their creativity, innovativeness and entrepreneurial attitudes should be cultivated.
During the event, HPC Senior researcher noted that the study, which surveyed prospective graduates of universities, community colleges and vocational training centers as well as a number of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship sponsoring institutions, revealed that youth mix-up between entrepreneurship ventures and SMEs, which confuses efforts to promote entrepreneurship despite the significant differences between them in terms of innovation, creativity and risk-taking. He added that facilities offered to entrepreneurship ventures in Jordan have not been encouraging and do not allow fresh graduates who truly want to pursue entrepreneurship to successfully initiate and design entrepreneurship ventures. The study also revealed that Jordanian legislation does not provide a definition of entrepreneurship or entrepreneurship ventures, which creates legal gaps that undermine entrepreneurial attitudes of society.
The study showed that 11.5% of youth wish to pursue self-employment, while 37% prefer employment in the public sector, and 28% prefer employment in the private sector. It also revealed that males have a higher inclination than females to pursue self-employment after graduation, and that the highest percentage of young labor market entrants wishing to start their own business is in the central region of Jordan (15.1%), followed by the northern region (8.8%) and the southern region (5.7%).
Moreover, the study indicated that 71% of young people who choose to start a business after graduation prefer to do so right after they graduate and that awareness of entrepreneurship among youth is still modest, with only 39% being aware of the concept. In addition, the study showed that risk-taking levels among young labor market entrants are modest and that the presence of institutions that sponsor entrepreneurship across governorates is good, while the gaps in entrepreneurship are primarily due to the existing entrepreneurship culture.
Results showed that commercial businesses were the first choice of young people for entrepreneurship ventures, followed by IT, manufacturing, engineering, education, banking, agricultural, tourism and law projects respectively.
The study recommends that the organizational structures of concerned government ministries, departments and institutions should be updated to allow for establishing special units for entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. It also recommends programs be developed to raise the awareness and educate public sector employees about entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity and integrate these concepts in their work.
Moreover, the study recommends that the private sector and civil society provide financial and logistics support to entrepreneurs, especially outside the capital Amman, in the fields of agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and other sectors.
The study further recommends establishing a governmental body to be mandated to offer solutions for entrepreneurship ventures and issuing a consolidated law that governs all matters relating to small innovative entrepreneurship ventures.
Key recommendations of the study included taking measures to direct local, regional and international donors to provide technical, financial and logistics support to specialized entrepreneurship ventures within the scope of a program that assesses and identifies the needs of these projects, and promoting a pro-entrepreneurship culture through traditional media channels and social media.
The related policy brief presents a set of policies to overcome obstacles that prevent young labor market entrants from pursuing entrepreneurship including raising entrepreneurship awareness among students from an early stage, introducing a graduation requirement whereby students of universities, community colleges and vocational training centers have to develop a viable entrepreneurship project, establishing a higher council for entrepreneurship, facilitating access to finance, establishing a financial umbrella to support entrepreneurs and amending laws and legislation to support a pro-entrepreneurship environment.
