President John Dramani has announced that the next NDC administration with him as President will re-brand the dormant Labour Department to national employment centres.
“For a young person who comes out of school, if you hear Labour Department you surely are not going there to look for work…We will re-brand them to be national employment centres and they will have branches in every region,” said the President.
According to the World Bank, about 48 percent of Ghanaians between the ages of 14 and 24 are unemployed. Over 18 percent of those aged between 25 and 64 years, are inactive or unemployed and actively looking for a job.
Also, more than 150,000 students leave school at various levels of education every year for the job market in Ghana.
Speaking at the Banquet Hall of the State House to highlight the party’s Manifesto for 2016 , the President said the regional offices of the centre, would among other things, build a database of young people and their acquired skills to make it easier for employers to search online for their much-needed human resource.
He further revealed that, the employer who recruits from this data base “will be given special incentives” to carry out their operations.
Unemployment Ghana’s biggest problem – IEA
A recent survey conducted by the Institute of Economic Affairs, (IEA) identified unemployment as the foremost problem confronting the majority of Ghanaians today. According to the survey, urban dwellers, females, and the majority of people living in the Western, Eastern and Central regions, identified unemployment as their biggest problem in Ghana.
The survey, conducted between November and December, 2015, sampled 1,500 respondents from across the ten regions of Ghana, who were 18 years of age, and above.
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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana