FG Sets Fresh Target of 21m Jobs by 2025
Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
The federal government has said that it is committed to creating an enabling environment for the creation of 21 million full time jobs and lifting 35 million people out of poverty by 2025.
It said that the initiative was in line with the National Development Plan of the government.
The government had been grappling with the growing unemployment rate which seemed to defy its previous commitment to creating jobs for jobless Nigerians.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, who gave the undertaking at the Inter-Ministerial Training Workshop on Boosting Job Creation, held at the United Nations House in Abuja, said that the federal, state, and local governments, as well as high net-worth individuals and corporate organisations have been giving serious attention to job creation and as such had taken necessary actions needed to create decent jobs for the Nigerian workforce.
A statement signed by the Head of Press and Public Relations at the ministry, Mr. Olajide Oshundun, quoted Ngige as having said that the high rate of unemployment in the country could not be ignored as it was a major contributing factor to the increased insurgencies, agitations and other criminal activities manifesting in different parts of the country.
The minister, who was represented by Director of Labour, in the Employment and Wages Department of the ministry, Mrs. Gloria Ogifo, noted that the state of the economy would not stop governments’ programmes for job creation and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment in collaboration with its social partners and relevant stakeholders had taken immediate and more proactive approaches to creating jobs, empowering the youths, and increasing productivity.
Ngige hoped that the workshop would help to navigate the paths for responsive actions that would bring about job creation.
According to him, such responsive actions that would stimulate sustainable job creation include encouraging entrepreneurship orientation from the primary level, to inculcate the culture of self-employment amongst the pupils at the early stage; providing credit facilities at low interest rate which would encourage youths to engage in agricultural entrepreneurship, as well as improving mechanical agricultural system.
He also identified other responses as creating more employment opportunities in urban and rural areas through strengthening the tourism sector, providing basic infrastructure, especially power, and good road networks; among others.
The Senior Special Adviser to the President on Employment and Job creation, Mrs. Matilda Megwa, while stating the objectives and outcome of the training workshop said that the meeting was critical, as a review of the National Employment Policy had identified loopholes in the employment processes across all sectors.
