FG to create 3 million jobs in 3 years – Osinbajo

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said the Federal Government would create a minimum of 3 million jobs within the next three years.

Apart from the 500,000 teachers to be recruited this year, Osinbajo said another 700,000 would be created in the private sector.

According to his Senior Special Assistant on media and publicity, Laolu Akande, the Vice President made this promise while receiving an implementation plan on job creation and youth employment jointly packaged by the Jon creation unit of the Presidency and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG),

He said with Strategic Framework & Implementation Plan for Job Creation & Youth Employment in Nigeria, more than 3 million jobs would be created in the country within three years starting in 2016 especially in Technology, Wholesale & Retail, Construction and Agro-allied sectors of the Nigerian economy. “This year alone the plan foresees the creation of over 700,000 private sector jobs, majority of which are expected in the Agro-allied sector,” he said.

While expressing excitement and hope regarding the plan, the Vice President recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari had set job creation as the central focus of government policy when he instructed that policy planning must address the question, “how many jobs would the policy create?

Even though job creation might be “painfully slow,” Osinbajo assured Nigerians that the Buhari presidency was addressing the constraints that businesses face including regulatory and institutional delays. He noted that government and the private sector only need to work together and get it right this time.

According to him, “I am extremely excited at all that is available. We really have everything we need, we just need to get it right,” indicating the role of effective implementation of the job creation plan.

The Job Creation Unit in the presidency initiated the job creation plan and the NESG as private sector players validated it through a joint committee, and would be working together with government in the implementation process.

Speaking earlier at the meeting, the chairman of the NESG, Mr. Kyari A. Bukar noted that “NESG is honored to be part of the Committee, and we commit to collaborate with the JCU whilst leveraging our vast private sector network to collectively solve the unemployment challenges Nigeria faces.”

He added that the NESG “have had the opportunity to review the Strategic Framework & Implementation Plan for Job Creation developed by the JCU, with the support of Dahlberg, and understand the urgency in addressing unemployment in Nigeria,” and urged the federal government to address the sectoral constraints of job creation particularly in the four selected sectors of Technology, Wholesale & Retail, Construction and Agro-allied businesses.