Minister-designate for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, is confident government’s plans to tackle unemployment will deliver on their objectives.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Wednesday at the Blackstar Square in Accra ahead of a grand ceremony to pass out 100, 000 graduates of the Nation Builders Corps (NaBCo), the Information Minister-designate stated the economy will soon reap the benefits of the job-creating agenda.
“[NaBCo] is just one of four pillars to deliver on our agenda for jobs,” he said about NaBCo.
NaBCo is established by Nana Akufo-Addo government to address economic challenges caused by lack of employment.
It is designed to provide jobs to unemployed graduates.
The new NaBCo graduates will be given jobs in modules dubbed Civic Ghana, Revenue Ghana, Educate Ghana, Enterprise Ghana, Digitise Ghana, Heal Ghana and Feed Ghana.
The enlisted personnel have gone through several weeks of rigorous training and capacity building programmes in their chosen schedules and will be working for three years and will receive a monthly stipend of GH¢700.00.
“Today, we are having in yet another programme, 100, 000 young Ghanaians who previously would have been unemployed who are being put into this programme. And what is instructive is that we have a clear exit path that ensures that they get into the world of sustainable work,” Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said on Wednesday.
Unemployment in Ghana
Recent World Bank report on jobs in Ghana shows that about 48 percent of the youth in Ghana – most of whom are university graduates – between 15 – 24 years do not have jobs.
According to the report, however, there has been an increasing trend towards the expansion of urban informal sector and a decline in opportunities for productive employment in the formal sector.
Consequently, the unemployment among the economically active population in Ghana is still high. Under-employment is also a major problem especially among women engaged in agriculture in rural areas.
In part, this situation has been attributed to weaknesses in the employment environment including gaps in information on the labour market.