“Youth employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in Bhutan”
Bhutan is a very small country with a population of 779,898 recorded this year. Popularly known as the land of Gross National Happiness. Bhutan faces several socio-economic challenges. Youth unemployment remains high in Bhutan due to development challenges faced. Bhutan emphasizes the idea of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which has replaced Gross National Product (GNP) as a measurement of prosperity.
For ages, the nation has promoted GNH (Happiness) as a principal goal of development, which had captured the international agenda and gained worldwide attention, recognition and had ultimately influence several other countries across the world.
Despite its tiny population, Bhutan’s economic growth has led to increasing urbanization. While this is good news for the country, it is also accompanied by some negative indicators such as problems related to employment and entrepreneurship opportunities.
It is right, of course, to subject that every rise will have its ultimate fall and it is equally correct to engage with the challenges.
Government alone cannot generate a sound stream of business opportunities unless its people taking up entrepreneur activities as their career option. Indeed, entrepreneurs are the important agencies of industrial growth and development of a nation. However, in Bhutan, the role of entrepreneurship in economic development has not attracted much professional interest unlike the other fields like education, medicine, and technology. Entrepreneurship has been viewed as an area that is largely ignored.
Although in the beginning, the entrepreneur forces are quite strong in Bhutan. It has become vital in the least developed economy like Bhutan. The Bhutanese population still prefers civil servants as their priority job as it’s more secured and less risky.
Recently we have noticed that few institutions are being developed for the enhancement of the entrepreneurial skills and mindset while there are double the number of institutions coming up for the youth that will help them excel or polish their knowledge in their area of interest which can help them pursue[1] for their employment.
However, due to the difficulties faced in these two years (COVID- 19) most of the Tourism sector such as Travel agents, Hotels / Resorts, Airlines are affected directly and because of which most of the offices are shut down. This has in one way or another pushed our youths towards business, well the business is not at its perk[2] yet they can still survive on it.
“Others have done very well this year, particularly in business and they may even feel guilty for doing so too”. (Perry, 31 December 2020 at 2.00 pm )
https://wendyperry.com.au/blog/
The growth and development of the entrepreneur ecosystem are recent in the Bhutanese economy. It highlights that there can be a wide range of significant contributions that entrepreneurship can make in the country which include an increase in capital formation and the creation of employment opportunities. However, the study suggests that Bhutanese youth must change the mindset and enhance their skills and knowledge and do best what is provided with.
In order to encourage youth into an enterprise, all schools, institutions, higher-level learning should infuse entrepreneurship and a subject to their curriculum. Keeping in mind the current situation happening in and around the world, young Bhutanese should not just focus on seated jobs but also focus on entrepreneurship as the future of entrepreneurship in Bhutan seems bright.
“The need of the hour and the future of the economy perhaps lies in the business incubation centers across the globe, which would probably address the growing concern of unemployment”. (Unknown, 2021)
[1] Follow / chase
[2] becomes or makes more cheerful, lively, or interesting.
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