BY DANIEL ALEMAYEHU
According to Ethiopia’s ten-year development plan, the idea of creating job opportunities is one of the many objectives. The governments of Ethiopia and regional states have been working in unison together with responsible stakeholders to achieve their goals. To this end, the federal government has formed a ministry dedicated to achieve its goals regarding job creation and related issues.
Ministry of Labor and Skills was established following the national reform, the Ministry oversees national job creation, skills development, and labor concerns. The Ministry is working closely with federal TVET institutes, entrepreneurship development institute, federal agricultural TVET colleges, tourism institute, and Kaliti transport management and traffic safety training institute.
Last week, the Ministry has organized an event at the Africa Leadership Excellence Academy located in Sululta. The event was focused on presenting and evaluating the six- month performance reports of federal and regional labor and skills bureaus to assess the overall progress of the Ministry and regional bureaus for better tomorrow.
On the event, State Minister of Labor and Skills, Nigussu Tilahun said that up to 2025, the Ministry plans to create around 14 million jobs so that there are three more years ahead to score the targeted figure. In general, the nation plans to create around 20 million new jobs for citizens by 2030.
In the past six months, as to the State Minister, they planned to create around 1.8 million jobs to citizens. According to the data, they have created 1.4 million jobs, which attained 81 percent of the plan. From the figure achieved, 70 percent of the jobs are created by opening enterprises, and the remaining 30 percent are from employment.
Nigussu further mentioned that comparing this year’s performance of job creation with last year, this year has created 550 thousand more jobs than the previous year. This figure also shows a 55 percent increase from last fiscal year.
To achieve such figure, as to Nigussu, they have been working on creating 3 million jobs every year. This year’s plan is a little higher which is 3.7 million jobs. It is because in the past two years, the nation has generally not achieved its objectives due to a number of problems that the nation faced. Nigussu said that the Ministry has been implementing various actions along with providing different kinds of job-related trainings.
The State Minister further elucidated, “The Ministry has planned to create around 3.7 million jobs in the current fiscal year. To achieve the set goal, the private sector plays a vital role. The government is also responsible in providing what is needed related with finance and other things.” The government wants the private sector to generate more jobs for citizens and the government is also eager to provide the necessary inputs, Nigussu noted.
As to the State Minister, from the jobs created so far, agriculture related jobs take the lead. It is proven that Ethiopia has untapped potential in Poultry, and they are creating more jobs to make themselves profitable. The production of fruits and vegetables and crop production take the next stands in agricultural jobs.
“The agriculture sector has higher job creation rate, and it can be used to support the industry by providing raw materials and other inputs. It can also create more jobs related with agro-processing,” Nigussu noted. Accordingly, Nigussu elucidated there are 4 agricultural colleges formed under the command of the Ministry with the objective of supporting the production and productivity of agriculture.
Nigussu further noted that during the last six months, 41 poly technic colleges, 94 one-stop service provider stations, 450 enterprises, and 18 industries, totally 670 institutions have been supervised and evaluated by a team the Ministry formed with the intention of understanding the reality on the ground.
Moreover, Nigussu also mentioned about the challenges that the Ministry and regional states’ bureaus have been encountering regarding quality and evaluation system. He said the question of quality in trainings and service delivery are the major challenges. In addition, malpractices and bad ways of doing business in foreign labor agencies are the major hurdles presented in the performance reports.
In order to curb those challenges, as to Nigussu, the Ministry is working on digitalizing the service delivery of those agencies. In this regard, the Ministry is working on implementing biometric registration system, and more than 300 agencies are registered to deliver the digitalize services. “The current performance report and discussion will be used as a spring board for our next moves,” Nigussu stressed.
By the same token, MoLS State Minister, Asegid Getachew, on his part said that the Ministry has been working mainly on job creating and training services. In the performance report, he said; “We have got better insights on our strengths and weaknesses and all the responsible stakeholders are working in harmony to restrain the challenges and achieve our objectives.”
“Oromia, Addis Ababa, and Amhara states have achieved better. The rest of the states have also done better, but still there are things we should work on,” Asegid added. In the coming six months, as to him, the Ministry plans to give due attention to create jobs in war- affected areas and overcome the challenges.
Be that it may, Oromia State Labor and Skills Bureau Head, Mathiwos Seboka on his part said that the regional state has been acting on providing better exposure to the people of the region. As to Mathiwos, the regional state has allocated 5 billion Birr for loan and around 60 thousand hectares of land in order to achieve its goals.
Accordingly, at this time, as to the bureau head, around 2.6 million unemployed people have been registered and screened out. From the above figure, more than 214 thousand of them are university and poly technic graduates. The bureau has also provided long and short term trainings for those citizens, the bureau head noted.
Similarly, Amhara labor and Skills Bureau Head, Arega Kebede, on his part said that the region is working on creating more than 1.2 million jobs in the current fiscal year. In the last six months, the bureau created a total of around 490 thousand jobs to citizens. Besides, the bureau has created more jobs in agriculture and industry sector, and various trainings have been organized.
Similarly, Dire Dawa City Administration Labor, Skills and Technology Development Bureau Head, Robel Getachew disclosed that the City Administration planned to create 17 thousand jobs in the current fiscal year and jobs were created for around 7 thousand citizens in the past six months. The City Administration focuses on jobs created by industry and urban farming so that around 2 thousand 5 hundred jobs have been created.
Moreover, Addis Ababa City Administration Labor Enterprise and Industry Development Bureau Deputy Head, Fisha Tibebu added that the City Administration planed to create around 4 hundred thousand jobs annually, and more than 284 thousand jobs were created. Of which, 84 percent of them are permanent jobs and the rest, 16 percent, are temporary.
The City Administration, as to Fisha, is working on five different sectors which have 130 sub-sections. Manufacturing and urban farming are the major sectors to create jobs in leather, construction, and animal husbandry. The City Administration has also supported unemployed citizens by providing loans and material purchase. Accordingly, the administration has provided around 1.8 billion Birr seed money and purchased materials worth 2 billion Birr. 75 percent of the loan is returned. They have also created jobs for 18 thousand graduate citizens, he said.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD 1 FEBRUARY 2023
