The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) would soon commence three policy initiative programmes aimed at creating and facilitating sustainable job opportunities for the youth in the country.
The programmes which include Job Centres, Artisan Directory and Regional and District Agric based Flagship, would complement the government’s efforts at reducing youth unemployment.
Interacting with journalists in Accra, on Thursday, Mr Justin Kodua Frimpong, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the YEA said, the three programmes were necessitated as stop gap measures to train and provide experience to young people to make them academically and practically ready for the job market.
Mr Frimpong noted that his outfit was mandated to facilitate, coordinate and develop job opportunities for young people since unemployment among this segment of the population was a major issue.
In relation to the flagship programme, the YEA Boss stated that the agency would look at how youth would be sent to areas that were in high demand of certain skilled labour, saying “Germany has become successful because of detailed attention towards giving employable skills to its citizens.”
Mr Frimpong noted that encouraging more youth to venture into the artisan directory would also provide them a platform that would serve as a market facilitator by bringing trained craftsmen and women to their prospective clients.
Making a presentation on the Job Centres Project, Mr Agya Yaw, Director of Research and Planning at YEA, said the objective of the project was to improve the employability of the youth through skills training, job matching and advisory services.
In addition, he stated that, the job centres would be in three components namely the online portal to allow employers and job seekers to interact, the walk-in-centres designated to support and guide job seekers and the training and capacity building key to the development of human resources in any sector of the economy.
Ms Afua Gyekyewaa, Director of Technical services, YEA stated that, the flagship project would directly engage at least 50,000 youth within the first five years of implementation and become a dependable avenue for reducing youth employment in the country.
Mr Kwame Foli, Research Statistics at the YEA said, the artisan directory would formalise artisan sector that would serve as a viable employment avenue for the youth.
BY ABEDUWAA LUCY APPIAH
