BY HIZKEL HAILU
The Ethiopian government is putting a lot of effort to support the development of micro and small enterprises by adopting MSE-strategy. The support scheme aims at providing training and marketing support, improving access to finance, and single-centre support. As it is pointed out in the national plan of action for job creation, the MSE program is registering some progress.
Besides, the Ethiopian government has given due attention to job creation especially for the youth who are the majority in the society. Cognizant of the rising unemployment in the country, the government of Ethiopia established the Federal Job Creation Commission (JCC) last year.
The Commission has launched its ambitious action plan with the aim of creating three million jobs in 2020 and 14 million jobs by 2025. And it is working significantly in developing Labor Market Information System (LMIS) whose major task is releasing labor market intelligence in a regular basis.
Cognizant of this fact, JCC is applying strong follow up mechanism and supporting the performance of job creation in each regional state and city administrations. Aiming to create three million jobs in 2020/21, JCC in collaboration with Federal Job Creation and Food Security Agency (JCFSA) presented the six-month performance report for the fiscal year in Arba Minch town of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples regional state.
On the occasion, JCC’s Commissioner Nigussu Tilahun said that job creation for citizens is a major agenda of the government. He also stated his office in partnership with the public and development partners has done a promising work in creating jobs for citizens since its establishment.
Last budget year, the Commission has created 2.4 million jobs, planning three million. Nigussu further added that the plan will require more commitment to be achieved the three million target for this year.
He also said that the JCC has made a lot of tasks to reinforce the sector amidst the high risk of the covid-19 pandemic. As an incentive, the government has provided tax reduction and financial support to small and micro enterprises to cope up with the effects of the pandemic.
Accordingly, it was able to reduce the number of jobless youth in the country. Besides enabling youths not to close down their jobs due to the pandemic, the Commission is working exhaustively in creating new opportunities in reducing the unemployment rate, he noted.
Nigussu also stated that JCC is focusing particularly on enterprises. According to the data obtained from JCC, there are more than 1.6 million licensed enterprises in Ethiopia that have been registered by the Ministry of Trade and Industry starting from 2011 until January 2020. In January 2020 alone, about 18,800 licenses have been granted.
During the discussion federal and regional state job creation bureaus have also presented their six-month performance reports.
In an exclusive interview with The Ethiopian Herald, Director General of the Federal Urban and Job Creation and Food Security Agency, Gebremeskel Challa said the harmonized support and monitoring provided to the federal and regional institutes during the budget year has enabled them to work effectively.
Additionally, he mentioned the agency is making different studies jointly with different institutions including the JCC and the National Bank of Ethiopia in order to assure the success of the sector in creating ample job opportunities.
While underscoring the Agency was set to create 800 thousand job opportunities for the first half of the fiscal year, he stated that it has created 870 thousand opportunities during the same period exceeding its plan. Of these, 61 percent are permanent job opportunities.
The agency is also working to create a linkage between higher education sectors and TVET graduates with government mega projects and other public and private industries in order to reduce unemployment after graduation. Accordingly, about 600 thousand job opportunities have been created through the formal recruitment process, he underlined.
According to Bogale Feleke, Head of Industry and Enterprises Development Office at Oromia Regional State, the regional state administration has created a total of 101, 297 job opportunities through formal recruitment process during the first half of the fiscal period. Among them, 24,823 of them are University and TVET graduates.
He further asserted that their region is working hard in loan reimbursement side by side with offering loans for youths to start their micro-businesses. Accordingly, they were able to collect 222 million birr as loan reimbursement during the past six months, he noted.
MIkiyas Mulugeta, Vice Head of Addis Ababa City Administration Job Creation and Enterprise Development Bureau for his part reported the city has created 229,370 job opportunities (171,652 Permanent and 57,718 temporary) during the past six months. As to him, this is more than the plan which stood at 224, 000.
According to him, the main reason for the success in meeting the plan is the fact that the management from top to bottom has given priority to the issue. The city mayor is also making frequent support and follow up for the sector.
Mentioning that it was their first performance report after becoming a regional state, Head of Industry and Enterprise Bureau of Sidama Regional State Selam Bilado said the state is working keenly in job creation as it is a major problem.
As to him, the region has created about 60 thousand jobs exceeding the plan by 14,000 during the first half of the fiscal year. He also stated that every government official in the state should plan by incorporating job creation aspirations in every sector.
“If every part of the government does not include job creation in its plan, it will be considered misconduct. Besides this, the government has a duty to facilitate conditions for job creation in order to continue as a government or a party. That is why the government has taken it as a key agenda,” he noted.
Adding to the point he underlined that the foreign companies that are investing in different towns of Sidama Regional State are creating jobs for citizens. As an illustration, the Chinese water processing and the Italians Coffee processing companies have created more than six thousand permanent and temporary jobs.
Owing to the fact that debt reimbursement has become a serious problem these days, heads of each regional state’s Industry and Enterprise Bureaus vowed to work towards improving the situation.
They all agreed that if the debtors are not able to repay the loan responsibly, the burden will fall on the next generation and closes the door of opportunity on others. The revolving fund should address many of jobless members of society as it was disbursed for the same aim.
Being thankful for the better performance of the federal and regional job creation agencies even under the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and security issues, the commissioner urged participants to give due emphasis for creating permanent jobs for youths.
The 6-month plan report, which was reviewed in a series of forums, will be finally sent to the National Council for Job Creation and the Investment and Job Creation Steering Committee to make shared performance report in the sector.
The Ethiopian Herald 9 February 2021
