Review Report For Manuscript "Use of Icts: What Effect On Youth Access To Employment in Cameroon?"

REVIEW REPORT FOR MANUSCRIPT
“USE OF ICTs: WHAT EFFECT ON YOUTH ACCESS TO EMPLOYMENT IN CAMEROON?”
This study employs data from 2000-2021 to assess the impact of ICTs on access to jobs
between two groups in the Cameroonian labor force: 1) group (1): youngsters aged 15-35
years old and 2) group (2): seniors at least 35 years old. Using a probit model with
instrumental to account for endogeneity issue, the study found that overall, Internet
penetration tends to increase the probability of finding jobs, irrespective of age. Compared
to the impact of the Internet on job finding between two groups, it is shown that the
Internet tends to facilitate group (1) in finding jobs than group (2).
Reviewer’s comment(s):
The idea and execution of the paper are delivered and consistent throughout the paper.
However, the paper is not well written and prepared because there were enormous
mistakes that could have been avoided by the author(s). I noted some points are worth
paying attention to improve the quality of the paper.
Major comment(s):
1. Description variables should provide more details about the data: min, max,
standard deviation, mean, median, etc.
2. The results in Table 4 are not fully explained. For example, the variable “No-DIP” is
positive and significant but the author(s) did not mention it. For better consistency
with LV1-3 in the model, it is better to change to “DIP”, 1 if workers hold a diploma
and 0 otherwise.
3. The novelty of the paper is not clearly stated in the paper. The author(s) should
explain in more detail about the contributions and the novelty of their study
compared to existing literature.
4. The references in the literature review section are not updated. The author(s)
should add more updated references on ICTs-related works. For example,
Mohammed, M., & Sadiq, A. M. (2015) and Sagayaraj, K. L., & Bernard, N. J. (2020)
discussed the role of ICTs in job opportunities for youth laborers in developing
countries. Besides, the authors mentioned that their results are similar to some
studies in developed countries, such as France, England, and Germany. However, the
author(s) should also compare their results to studies in developing countries.
Kılıçaslan, Y., & Töngür, Ü. (2019) provided evidence that ICTs affected employment
in the manufacturing sector in Turkish. Similarly, Tshukudu, M. (2019) found
evidence of ICTs impact on employment in the case of Botswana or Herman (2020)
for the Romanian labor marker.
5. Sex variable is included in the model but the author(s) did not discuss that. Indeed,
ICTs is found to shrink gender inequality in employment by improving female
employment (Valberg, 2020).
6. Discussion of results should be integrated with the previous section. The conclusion
and policy implication should be separated. The author(s) should focus more on
implications for 1) Cameroon and 2) Other countries that belong to the same group
income as Cameroon/ Regional/ Neighbouring countries.
References:
Herman, E. (2020). The influence of ICT sector on the Romanian labour market in the
European context. Procedia Manufacturing, 46, 344-351.
Kılıçaslan, Y., & Töngür, Ü. (2019). ICT and employment generation: evidence from Turkish
manufacturing. Applied Economics Letters, 26(13), 1053-1057.
Mohammed, M., & Sadiq, A. M. (2015). The role of information and communication
technology (ICT) in providing job opportunities for youth in the developing
world. Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences, 6(7), 174-179.
Sagayaraj, K. L., & Bernard, N. J. (2020). Diversity of ICT in Entrepreneurship: A New Digital
Employment Era. Journal of Management, 7(S1), 172-82.
Tshukudu, M. (2019). Impacts of access to ICTs on employment status in Botswana (No. 68).
Valberg, S. (2020). ICT, gender, and the labor market: A cross-country
analysis. Digitalisation and development: Issues for india and beyond, 375-405.
Minor comment(s):
1. The manuscript needs to be English proofread before submission. The grammar
mistakes and typos are too many. For example, in line 49, page 1, it should be
“economy” or “economic development”. Line 54, page 9, it should be “worker”, not
“worke”. Moreover, the term “digital devise” is not correct, the author(s) may refer to
“digital divide”. Line 25, page 4: sentence fragment.
2. Lines 16-27: text in a different color.
3. The footnote does not follow the traditional rule. The footnote number should be
placed at the end of the sentence and the footnote is used to provide additional
information so that does not interfere with the flow of the paper.
4. Inconsistent use of the term: “ICTs” but sometimes “ICT”. “%” and sometimes
“percentage”.
5. The end of Table 4 is mixed up and wrong description. For example, it should be
“constant” instead of “comment”, “loglikelihood” not “loglikehold”, etc.
6.
Reviewer’s decision: For all the above comments that I made, this paper does not meet the
quality for publication in the HELIYON journal. I decided to REJECT the paper.

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REVIEW REPORT FOR MANUSCRIPT

“USE OF ICTs: WHAT EFFECT ON YOUTH ACCESS TO EMPLOYMENT IN CAMEROON?”

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