Jobless rate high: CPL founder

By PETER ESILA
THE unemployment rate in the country is very high although there are “little statistics” provided on it, and a solution may lie in incentivising manufacturing, says a businessman.
City Pharmacy Ltd (CPL) Group founder Sir Mahesh Patel made the statement after watching hundreds of job-seekers queuing at the Vision City Mega Mall car park in Port Moresby on Saturday, hoping to be interviewed for a few vacancies advertised by The Stanley Hotel and Suites.
“Some time ago, when we did a walk-in interview, looking for 400 staff for our Stop and Shop in Port Moresby, we had 4,600 people turn up,” he said.
“It was heart-breaking to see more than 4,000 people go home empty-handed. And most of them had high-level education.”
He said the unemployment rate was very high.
“There are very little statistics on the unemployment rate in PNG, but my guess is that (it is) very high,” he said.
Sir Mahesh, who founded CPL in 1987 with just one pharmacy and four employees, now has more than 2,600 employees working in more than 70 stores nationwide. He said more should be done to increase employment opportunities.
“I have always said that we need to incentivise manufacturing. But then we need to lower the costs of operations — like power, unnecessary security costs, fuel etc,” he said.
“We just need to look at Fiji — with a population of only 800,000 — which manufactures things like tomato sauce. Why can’t we do it here with some of the best produce in the world?”