ADDIS ABABA – Federal Urban Job Creation and Food Security Agency announced that over 800 thousand jobs was created in the past eight months.
He also stressed that this is not enough when compared with the number of unemployed in the country.
Bekele Mengistu, Deputy Head of the Agency, said that the agency has been creating job opportunities for citizens by using convenient environments created by government.
Accordingly, the government has set an enabling strategy and established new supportive institutions that have different roles but common goals to create jobs for urban youth.
According to him, while some of said institutions provide technical supports, others provide skill and training, market linkage and various financial supports for micro and small enterprises.
As to Bekele, the government has established one-stop center to provide effective service for the enterprises.
The Deputy head underscored that through the support of the government, a lot of enterprises has showed improvements in terms of income.
While some of them have been creating job opportunities for others, others have transferred from micro enterprises to medium-level manufacturing industries, he added.
Further, he stated that their incomes are audited to assess their profitability based on their monthly or yearly income.
In the past eight months, in a bid to to increase the income of micro enterprises, eight thousand market linkages were created for the enterprises by the government, at national level, by giving priority to them in government projects, facilitating different exhibition programs and linking them with different private limited companies, he noted.
He explained that the non-synchronousity between the type of education given by higher education and the accessible job opportunities is the main challenge facing the agency.
And to solve this, the agency has undertaken a study and presented it to the ministry of science and higher education.
Jantirar Abay, infrastructure advisor with ministerial portfolio, for his part, said that the government gives especial attention to job creation as it has great advantage to change the lives of people found under poverty line.
Also, he stressed that the sector has been successful in changing the lives of many by improving the income of poor people, and the government will strength its job creation strategy.
The Ethiopian Herald May 1/2019
BY TAMERU REGASA
