News: FG to Create 3 Million Jobs in 3 Years

The Federal Government has stated its readiness to partner the members of the private sector with a view to creating three million jobs in three years, starting from 2016.

This private sector-led job creation plan is different from the direct creation of government jobs planned by the Muhammadu Buhari administration, including 500,000 teaching jobs for unemployed graduates.

The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice-President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, disclosed this in a statement made available to journalists on Wednesday.

Akande said the implementation plan on the job creation and youth employment in Nigeria jointly packaged by the Job Creation Unit of the Presidency and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group was presented to the vice-president at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

“As laid out in the plan, ‘Strategic Framework & Implementation Plan for Job Creation & Youth Employment in Nigeria’, more than three million jobs would be created in the country within (the next) three years, starting in 2016, especially in technology, wholesale and retail, construction and agro-allied sectors of the Nigerian economy.

“This year alone, the plan foresees the creation of over 700,000 private sector jobs, majority of which are expected in the agro-allied sector,” Akande.

He quoted Osinbajo as expressing excitement and hope regarding the plan.

The vice-president reportedly recalled that Buhari had set job creation as the central focus of his government’s policy when he instructed that policy planning must address the question of jobs to be created.

Although he admitted that job creation might be ‘painfully slow’, Osinbajo assured Nigerians that the present administration was addressing the constraints militating against the business sector.

He noted that government and the private sector needed to work together to get it right this time.

The Job Creation Unit in the presidency initiated the job creation plan and the NESG – as private sector players – validated it through a joint committee, and would be working together with the government in the implementation process.

Speaking earlier at the meeting, the Chairman, NESG, Mr. Kyari Bukar, noted that ‘NESG is honoured to be part of the committee, and we commit to collaborate with the JCU while leveraging our vast private sector network to collectively solve the unemployment challenges Nigeria faces’.

Source: Punch