Registration of unemployed begins

A 14-day nationwide registration of the unemployed and underemployed to enable the government to develop appropriate interventions begins on Wednesday.

The exercise, under the auspices of an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Action for Employment Generation, will also provide data and profiles of the jobless youth with a view to giving them relevant training skills.

The committee comprises the Ministries of Youth and Sports, Local Government and Rural Development, Food and Agriculture, Roads and Highways, Interior, Women's Affairs, Works and Housing, Environment and Science and Employment and Manpower Development.

It is tasked to formulate, implement and monitor ministerial projects for creating jobs and projects for expanding skills development nationwide.

Mrs Cecilia Bannerman, Minister of Employment and Manpower Development, told a press conference on Tuesday that the comprehensive data generated from the exercise would enable her ministry and other policy makers to map out strategies to deal with unemployment problems.

She said the registration would be carried out in 360 centres, comprising 66 public employment centres of the Labour Department and other convenient centres that District Chief Executives would identify.

Mrs Bannerman said the registration assistants, mostly from the Labour Department, Ghana Statistical Service and the Development Planning Units of the various district assemblies have been trained and posted to the centres.

She said the processing of the data would take about a month after which the various government interventions would begin.

Deputy Government Spokesman, Mr Kwabena Agyepong, said the exercise was not to give people ready jobs but rather to encourage them to use their skills to start their own businesses.

He said the interventions would be private sector led and that the government would encourage individuals to open job offices to collect relevant information on employment opportunities in which such individuals could seek employment.