Labor Market Reform Expert

Duration: Short-term, full-time
Location: Travel to Tunisia required, although majority of work will be performed from the consultant’s home base

Integra LLC, is recruiting for a full time Labor Markets Reform Expert to develop a “program design report” for a labor markets liberalization program in Tunisia.

Background:  The United States Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has issued a limited- distribution solicitation for a consultant to develop a labor market liberalization program in Tunisia, as part of Tunisia’s Threshold Country Program.

Firms in Tunisia face an extraordinarily high fiscal and regulatory cost to employ workers. MCC, through the “Constraints Analysis” process, has identified this cost as a binding constraint to growth in Tunisia, and seeks to develop a program to work with the Tunisian government to lessen it. Examples of policies driving high labor costs in Tunisia include:

• Taxes and social charges related to employment approach 38% of payroll for domestic/onshore firms. This is well above rates observed in or for similar economies.
• After four years of employment, firms are required to offer permanent positions to their workers, after which time government approval is required in order to terminate employment, whether for economic or performance reasons. Historically, termination requests are approved at a rate of only 14%.
• All wages in the country are set through a system of centralized collective bargaining, which occurs every three years. Wages are differentiated among 51 sectors, by job level and tenure of worker. Employers are free to charge above minimums established, but no less. 
Though well intentioned, MCC’s analysis found that these policies and others have resulted in low labor productivity, high unemployment, employment contracts of very short duration, an underdeveloped workforce, and exacerbated incentives to operate informally. These issues are identified as the most important constraints on employment and economic growth in the country.

Duties: The consultant will develop a “program design report” for a labor market liberalization program in Tunisia. The consultant will be required to:

• Identify key laws, policies, regulations, and institutional arrangements that cause or exacerbate the problem of high fiscal/regulatory cost of employing workers.
• Recommend specific actions and/or policy reforms that will lessen the cost of employing workers. These recommendations should be based on effective reform in other countries, draw on international best-practice, and be politically and administratively feasible in Tunisia, while at the same time providing a test of the country’s commitment to reform.
• Identify and flesh out technical assistance measures necessary to support the recommended reforms, which should be achievable in a three-year time frame.
• Evaluate factors motivating Tunisia to carry out reforms or hindering its ability to do so.
• Propose a full program logic linking inputs to outputs to outcomes to goals, highlighting indicators that can be used to assess progress, as well as data sources and reasonable targets.
• Develop a budget for the full program, assuming a 3-year life of project and a 15-30 million USD budget.
• Synthesize existing knowledge on this area conducted by other donors, and coordinate with other donors making investments in this area.
• Coordinate closely with the Government of Tunisia, to obtain their ownership of the final document.
• Incorporate a clear gender perspective, which will assess how the proposed reforms will address gender disparities in employment, and how they may result in a gender-differentiated impact.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Minimum 10 years technical experience in labor market liberalization in the developing world.
• Significant experience leading program design for policy reform programs in the 15- 30 million dollar range.
• French and English fluency required. Arabic fluency is preferred.

For more information please contact Eric White, Managing Associate and Lead Economist, Integra LLC at ewhite@integralllc.com

Integra is an Equal Opportunity Employer.