The Youth Employment Authority (YEA) has said it has put in place a strategy to roll out 12,000 jobs per month for the rest of the year 2016, to meet their target of creating 100,000 jobs this year.
According to the Authority, the structures of the new modules to be rolled out have been tailored to build the capacity of the youth who will be engaged.
[contextly_sidebar id=”YasQxuX7fHdj4heurgrnXfTmIXsEYUvx”]Speaking to Citi News on the fringes of a World Bank Workshop on Youth Employment, the YEA Acting Director, Kobina Beecham, said the scheduled roll out is being implimented on the back of a three-pronged strategy to strengthen the capacity of the modules
“We have a three-pronged strategy. We have to strengthen our capacity to roll out these modules. We spent the first quarter of the year doing that so we only just began the roll out of the module phase and we are supremely confident we can deliver on that.”
He explained that their module placed emphasis on making the beneficiaries viable adding that they were working with service providers like the Police Service to create the jobs.
“Baked into the design is the fact that these service providers are involved in the selection of the beneficiaries. The hope is that, at the end of the two-year program, a greater number of these beneficiaries will be absorbed by the service provider be it the Ghana Health Service or the Ghana Police Service,” Mr. Beecham explained.
The Acting Director assured that his outfit was wary of creating a situation where most of the beneficiaries of the programme would find themselves unemployed in a few years.
He thus explained that they expect to equip most of the beneficiaries with skills to help them in the labor market even if they are not retained by the service providers.
“The last thing we want is to create a wave of employment so we have designed it such that, most of them after working with the employers for two years, will be absorbed into the system. Those that have not been absorbed into the system, they would have acquired skills and mental discipline which will help them.”
Mr. Beecham further noted that a portion of their allowances will be saved and later given to them as startup capital for future endeavors.
“We are basically saving a portion of their allowance which we will give to them as startup capital to ease their transition into the future labour market.
Over 600,000 jobs created
Government last month released a list outlining the number of jobs it has created in the last four years. According to the list, government has since 2013, created close to 600,000 jobs.
A statement signed by the Minister of Communications, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah further said close to 96,000 people have also been trained to create their own jobs.
But the numbers have been discredited by analysts, who also questioned the sustainability of these jobs over the long-term.
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana