11 million jobs created so far, Employment minister
We want to have a track record of jobs created, Ignatius Baffour-Awuah
Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, has announced the establishment of an employment coordinating committee to look into the high unemployment rate among the teeming youth in the country.
The Committee, set up to create jobs, will help the government track the number of people employed in both private and public sectors.
Speaking at a workshop to discuss job creation in Accra on Monday, February 21, the employment minister said, “It [employment coordinating committee] will be centre, where every intervention of government, in terms of employment generation, is collated and brought together so that when we say we have created this number of jobs, then we know that we have not left out a certain section of the space."
“Every section within the public space has a linkage with the private sector so we expect that a representative from a particular ministry. If that person comes, he talks about the direct jobs created within the ministry and the indirect jobs which reflect what it has translated into the public space will also come...So we will expect that from hence we are going to have a broader representation of what happens as a result of government actions,” he added.
Ignatius Baffour-Awuah noted that government has so far created 11 million jobs.
He stated that under government's flagship programme, 1 District 1 Factory initiative, about 55,000 jobs have been created.
A total of 153,000 jobs have also been created under the creative sector, the employment minister said.
However, the issue of unemployment remains one of Ghana's major challenges and government is devising strategies to end this growing menace.
Employment Minister, Ignatius Baffour-Awuah