The job situation in Mauritius – know the right people or stay unemployed!

Growing up in Mauritius, you are taught at a very early age, whether at home or in school, that education is your passport to a bright future. It is your chance to secure a good job and do well in life. But is that really the case?

As a child, you start making the sacrifices to reap the benefits later on in life. You cut down on your playing time to do extra homework or take more private tuitions to help you understand things better. You are not happy about it all but you think that it’s going to pay off one day.
Then comes the day of your graduation – you’ve finally achieved something in life, you’ve got your bachelor’s degree and you’re filled with enthusiasm and you’re ready to step into the working world. You decide to celebrate your success and to mark the end of your academic studies.

When the party is over, you decide to make some job applications in the hope that you’ll soon be earning some decent money. You don’t hear from some employers but that doesn’t upset you a lot. You have sent over a 100 applications, so the offers will be coming in any moment now. Weeks passed by and you still hear nothing. You start to get depressed now. Then, you get this nice letter that you’ve been waiting for – a job interview!

You wear the best clothes from your closet, make yourself look presentable and professional and set off to close down the deal. You’re nervous but you know you’ve been prepared all your life for this very moment and it’s not like you can’t do the job, otherwise you wouldn’t have applied in the first place. You step into the interview room and the man sitting in the boss’s chair ask you some lame questions about yourself and your education. You proudly hand over your certificates to him so he can have a look for himself and then you hear him say, “That’s all good but where is your recommendation letter?”. You thought what kind of tricky question that could be and you managed to utter the words to tell him you haven’t got any. You don’t know any influential people because you don’t mingle with politicians as you think they’re liars; you don’t hang out with the upper class because you think they’re hypocrites. So what do you do now?

Well after so much studying, who would have thought that getting a job will be so difficult eh? You cannot afford to keep on studying as you need money for that as well. You got to find money some way or another to pay up your bills. There’s just one solution then – and that’s queuing up for unemployment benefits and even though it’s not a lot of money, at least it will come in handy.
Corruption is really bad in Mauritius, so is the financial burden and the social sacrifice of studying really worth it in the end?