Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), Justin Kodua Frimpong, has admitted that the government has more to do in dealing with the rising levels of unemployment among the country’s youth.
He says the thousands of youth who showed up at the YEA job fair is proof that the lack of employment opportunities for graduates is a huge hurdle both the agency and the government must immediately cross and find a lasting solution to.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Frimpong indicated that, he was saddened by the turnout and is prepared to liaise with other stakeholders to put the agency on its toes as a means of dealing with Ghana’s unemployment situation going forward.
“At a point, I felt sad. To be honest, looking at the number of youth who were there and the level of desperation that set in, then I really realized that, as an agency and as a country, we need to do more, although it is understandable that we are a developing country and year after year, a number of the youth want to join the labour market, which is why we are having this challenge. ”
“But my team and I realized that it is good that we have started this job fair to partly deal with the issue of unemployment in this country. We will go back to the office to see how we can also scale up.”
Many unemployed youth on Thursday massed up at the Accra International Conference Centre for the YEA Job Fair in search of jobs from several employers.
The youth, numbering over 1,000, were seen standing in long queues, with many of them struggling to enter the building to secure jobs with companies.
But the YEA says although expectations were high, it is satisfied with the outcome of the first day.
“I must say that what transpired has really vindicated the decision of the management of the YEA to move away from models like community police and nursing to more of job facilitation and liaising. So far, we are happy and satisfied with the number of companies that came and gave employment opportunities for the youth”, Mr. Frimpong added.
In the meantime, authorities say they have taken steps to address the mad rush brought on by the huge numbers to ensure a smooth process.
“At least, one thing we learnt today [Thursday] is that most of the companies were inside the Conference Center. So what we are going to do is that, we are going to move the companies to the compound of the conference center. So that people will easily move about. That is the first option. The second option is that those who will come at the plenary of the Conference Centre will be moved to the forecourt. So these are the options that we are looking at so that, at least, the panic we saw at a point in time will not happen.”
Justin Koduah Frimpong has, however, urged participants to make use of the YEA website platform to aid in job facilitation.
“People can come, but they can also visit our website www.yeajobcentre.gov.gh because what is happening at the conference Centre is also happening there. One can upload the CV and our career team can just match you to jobs that are available.”
