Jobs or Growth: Which Comes First? - Liveblog & webcast

Wednesday, April 18

Today 910 million people at work across the globe live in poverty. To cope with the growth of the working-age population, more than 300 million jobs will be needed in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa in the coming decades. Jobs are critically important for development, however, there is a debate about when a growth strategy is enough, and when a jobs strategy is needed.

This is one of the difficult questions posed in the forthcoming World Development Report (WDR) 2013 on Jobs. It is also among the issues covered by the new Jobs Knowledge Platform (JKP), which launched this week.

Replay a discussion as distinguished panel of experts moderated by Tumi Makgabo, Executive Director of Africa Worldwide Media and former CNN International News Anchor, discussed this issue.

Featuring:
- Robert Zoellick | President, The World Bank Group
- Hassine DiMassi | Minister of Finance and Former Minister of Labor, Tunisia
- Kaushik Basu | Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India and Professor of Economics, Cornell University
- Paul Romer | Professor of Economics, New York University 


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Read what others are asking
I believe that jobs are more important. How can you assure better growth if you are having a certain ratio of unemployment prevailing in the economy? However, certain projects can be introduced, which on one hand are helpful for backing growth and on the other hand need a good lot of labor.
Zunaira Zubair
Pakistan
Innovation - i.e., commercialisation of new ideas - is an avenue to growth of increasing interest in developing countries. Innovators are often SMEs which are big employers. What can the Bank and Members do to foster innovation-led job creation in developing countries, and is this a priority?
Pete Silvester
Australia
what kind of jobs to cope with the suitable growth pattern according to each country level of development? is it a clear causality between job and growth? what are the determenants to optimize the outcomes of both.
abeer
Egypt, Arab Rep.
Jobs-we are not thinking the impact but profit & now destroy almost everything. Why not think this way that we create jobs of development works. The field of development works will turn back the investment& we don't make profit from them; social business, are not differing between growth & jobs.
Md.Moshfaqur Rahman
Bangladesh
My question would be
Education--> Jobs --> Growth, is not it the winning recipe for a healthy/wealthy organizational society?
GS RADJOU
France
I WOULD ASK YOU TO FOCUS ON JOB OPPORTUNITY IN AFRICA OR IN OTHER DEVELOPING COUNTRIES GIVEN THAT IS THERE WHERE THE RURAL MATERIALS(NATURAL RESOURCE) ARE STILL AVAILABLE
HATUNGIMANA DAMIEN
Rwanda
1.which of this growth has a positive effect on jobs Economic growth and population growth.

2.which is better growth without development and development without growth and how does both scenarios affect jobs
Isaac Asamoah
Ghana
What do we mean by growth??? A country can grow without his people growing and been employed but when the people are gainfully employed,they will grow and the country ultimately grow.What growth indices are we looking at here.
OSENI Olanrewaju Kamil-Muhammed
Nigeria
Growth when sustained creates not only Jobs but dependable democracy where the ability to meaningfully differ is encouraged and tolerated.
Danladi Mohammed
Nigeria
Given the current adverse economic trends in most countries i feel jobs should come first while growth should follow without losing the job. Growth should come as way of expanding capacities to be able to better ones output in terms of talents and capabilities.
Juma Yusuf Haineni
Kenya
Highly populous countries like India/China have no choice but to resort to low productivity manufacturing/service to engage its youth. There is no market or resources to do anything higher on the value chain at such a large scale.
murali
Germany
All the people in different working age groups can be segmented to different categories based on their age, education, skills, experience, physical fitness & common sense and can be assigned to the work/opportunities available in that geographical location or country.
Faisal Pervez
Bangladesh
Growht must come first. It is not good to create jobs if the economy isn´t growing. Jobs without growth will result in inflation.
Felipe Garcia
Mexico
It is shrewd business sense to incorporate job training, education and skills into the rehabilitation process of refugees. This creates local produce and local markets. A reversal of modernism even.
Martin Smalley
United Kingdom
Unemployed people in those regions/countries can be segmented based on age, education, skills, experiences & common sense. Creating awareness of their abilities to become self-employed or can be assigned to the potential sectors where scopes & opportunities available to escape poverty.
Faisal Parvez
Bangladesh
What examples can you cite of countries that are increasing public debt in order to finance job-creating investments in basic infrastructure? Are there lessons for other countries?
Alex Bryson
United Kingdom
I would prefer to remain unknown if my questions are used.

What basic factors are used when jobs are created in conjunction with a country’s growth strategy?
Vennie Jones
United States
I would prefer to remain unknown if my questions are used.

How is the World Bank using its influence to promote a growth strategy and jobs program in countries to benefit both the government and the population?
Vennie Jones
United States
growth for whom when thousands remains unemployed?
k j
India
How does World Bank help if small level non governmental organisation intends to work in the field of income generation for youth by providing Vocational training?
Yubaraj Paudyal
Nepal
My question is What could be the optimal role of the government in creating jobs? Do we really need the government, or a booming private sector is sufficient for creating jobs?
Cristina Tello
Peru
Have you considered the possibility to crowdsource the job-related information (needs, skills, wages, work conditions, companies, etc.) and be able to use it to empower all actors (included workers) to develop new skills, better negotiate, increase their mobility, etc.?
Francesco Ciriaci
Italy
Excuse me if I sound naive, but what about growth to serve humanity? For example, hundreds of millions of people are still living with hunger due to food shortage. If the world mobilised resources to produce food to feed the hungry, there will be jobs created.
Alex Tilman
Timor-Leste
It's to difficult to make a priority between growth and jobs; the two go together.
The growth create more jobs but without a good job and a real plan of the strategy we cannot develop the growth.
My question is about the best strategy to develop food security in Senegal or in west Afica?
Mrs Coumba THIAM
Senegal
Today poverty is growing day by day but our resources are limited to minimize the poverty and its big cause is population. We can reduce and control poverty if we control population.
So need to strat astonish projects in poor countries and create suitable jobs.
Shahzad Anwar
Pakistan
11Today poverty is growing day by day but our resources are limited to minimize the poverty and its big cause is population. We can reduce and control poverty if we control population.
So need to strat astonish projects in poor countries and create suitable jobs.
Shahzad Anwar
Pakistan