Socio-professional Integration of Higher Education Graduates and Public Employment Policy in Algeria

The centralized and state-directed development model gave rise to several major phenomena in Algeria during the period 1970–1985, namely:

A tangible decline in unemployment levels, achieved through the creation of one million new jobs in the public sector.A marked expansion of the wage-labour system, which came to represent approximately 75% of the economically active population.The emergence and expansion of middle social classes as a result of sustained economic growth and the massification and free access to education in Algeria.The implementation of a policy of full employment in the public sector.

However, this policy of “full employment” has been criticized for not being governed by principles of efficiency and rationality at the level of public enterprises or their workforce.

In this regard, two major causes of this dysfunction may be identified:

The prioritization of the social function of employment over its economic function, insofar as the ideology of effort and economic efficiency was not among the state’s priorities.The predominance of a credentials-based logic over a skills-based logic, along with a lack of commitment to achieving the programmed results of public enterprises.

After 1990, following the sharp decline in oil prices in 1985, Algeria resorted to institutional and economic reforms and adopted liberal economic policies, which compelled the state to abandon the previous development model and to establish the foundations and mechanisms of a market economy.

However, the implementation of these forced liberal economic reforms—conducted within the framework of structural adjustment policies under the guidance of experts from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank—led to the emergence of new phenomena, particularly in terms of the formation and functioning of the national labour market, as well as the internal organization of public enterprises.

Some of the main dysfunctions affecting the labour market include:

– A clear disintegration of the wage-labour system;– The widespread expansion of informal and parallel employment;– A shift of the national economy toward the dominance of the service and commercial sectors;– The proliferation of new non-standard forms of employment contracts, such as fixed-term contracts, informal employment, and increased occupational and geographical mobility, particularly among unskilled labour;– The expansion of a family-based private sector, mainly in services and trade;– A widening gap and growing mismatch between the education system and the new requirements of the labour market;– A significant increase in unemployment, which reached 30% of the economically active population in 2000 as a result of mass layoffs in public enterprises.

Following the renewed rise in oil prices and the launch of major development programmes and large-scale projects after 2000, the labour market experienced a substantial decline in unemployment, which fell to 9.8% in 2013.

Three main factors contributed significantly to the continuous decline in unemployment from 2000 onward:

The implementation of large-scale development programmes and infrastructure projects such as airports, the East–West Highway, the one-million-housing programme, the Algiers metro, and tramway systems, driven by the sharp increase in oil prices and the participation of foreign oil companies in hydrocarbon investment.Substantial financial assistance and incentives granted to farmers.The diversification and multiplication of agencies supporting youth employment, such as ANEM, ANSEJ, CNAC, and ANGEM, among others.

Based on the above data and the general context of Algeria’s economic situation, this study focuses on youth unemployment—particularly among university graduates—and on the extent to which public employment-support agencies contribute to their professional and social integration through:

– Assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of these public agencies in facilitating professional integration and, consequently, in reducing unemployment;– Examining the relative weight of the different social actors involved—namely university graduates (the respondents), the state (through its youth employment-support agencies), and the family as a contributing actor—in the success or failure of socio-professional integration;– Analysing the role of social origin, type of degree, and gender in shaping different forms of socio-professional integration and specific career trajectories;– Determining whether the specific outcomes of the strategies adopted by these three actors reveal the emergence of patterns or a typology of university graduates entering the labour market and structuring their professional and social lives.