In a bid address the issue of unemployment, the current administration led by President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed plans in the offing to open job centres across the nation before the end of March next year.
This was made known by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Dr. Paul Adalikwu at the 48th Annual National Conference of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday.
It was learnt that the job centres would be located in all local government areas of the country in order to gather the data of unemployed citizens for proper planning.
According to the government, the job centres will help them have an idea of the actual number of unemployed persons in the country in order to perfect all requisite processes needed to arrest the problem of unemployment which was among the campaign promises of the Buhari-led administration.
During a panel discussion on addressing Nigeria’s unemployment challenge, Adalikwu noted that currently no one seemed to know the exact number of jobless people across the country, hence the decision to open the centres.
He said: “For the first time in Nigeria, that process is being perfected and precisely by the first quarter of next year, we are going to have the processes put in place where unemployed graduates can register their data for proper planning and coordination across the country. So, by the first quarter of next year, we will have our job centres in all local governments in Nigeria.”
Adalikwu said desk officers would be stationed at the outfits to encourage unemployed graduates to come and register their data in order to boost planning.
He said the government would occasionally get and collate data from all the centres and would adequately decide what to do with respect to job creation, adding that the development would help enhance computation on budgetary provisions for the creation of jobs in states.
Adalikwu also observed that the government has increased the number of skill acquisition centres in the country to help unskilled and semi-skilled workforce across the country get better.
