11th September, 2014
The Organised labour on Thursday in Abuja called for sustainable jobs as Federal Government plans to create three million jobs in the next 12 months.
NAN reports that President Goodluck Jonathan had on Wednesday inaugurated a Presidential Jobs Board to facilitate the creation of at least three million jobs in the next 12 months.
In separate interviews with NAN in Abuja, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) commended government for the initiative.
Dr Peter Ozo-Eson, the General Secretary of the NLC, told NAN that government should focus on jobs that would be sustainable, decent and permanent.
“We are happy with any programmes that will deliver jobs, but the important thing is that we need to know the type of jobs that will be created,” he said.
Ozo-Eson said that Federal Government should put in place a mechanism that would check the framework, monitoring and proper definition of what type of jobs to be created.
Mr Bobboi Kaigam, the TUC President, urged government to keep to its words on the creation of the three million jobs.
Kaigam said that government had pronounced jobs creation on several occasions, but the statistics of unemployed persons were still on the increase.
He said that the jobs created under jobs schemes like the SURE-P and the National Directorate of Employment, among others, were short time jobs.
“We want jobs that are on sustainable basis so that in another two years, we can plan for another three million and in the next five years the statistics of unemployment would have reduced,” he said.
Mr Olusegun Oshinowo, the Director-General of NECA, commended the President for taking steps to reduce unemployment in the country.
He said that this was not the first time that the President would set up high powered committees to address the issue of unemployment in the country.
“We want to see results this time around, we want to see improvement in our youths getting jobs,” he said.
The NECA boss called on the newly inaugurated committee to be steadfast, focused and come up with practicable measures that would lead to the creation of three million jobs.
“Nigerians will want to know where the jobs will be coming from and how they are going to create them,” he said.
He called on the Federal Government to ensure that the private sectors were involved in the creation of the jobs.