YEAs new flagship programs will “support employment of the youth”- Employment Minister

The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) will roll out some new programmes to facilitate job creation among the youth.

As part of government’s effort to mitigate the growing concern among the youth in areas of employment, the sector minister, Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, emphasized on the ministry’s resolve to champion the cause of ensuring job sustainability.

Speaking at the “Meet the Press” forum organized by the information ministry, Mr. Baffour-Awuah spoke extensively on the modalities of the programme.

“On Youth Employment in 2017, the sustainability of youth Employment agency (YEA), became a concern for government. As a result, the government took some initiatives to transform the agency and strategically position it for growth and sustainability. This included investing in sustainable growth, promoting improved development and job creation and positioning YEA as a facilitator of jobs.

“As a result YEA launched three new flagship programmes. These are, YEA job center, the regional flagship programmes and the artisan directory. Between 2017 and 2020 143, 963 Ghanaians have been connected to various forms of employment through programmes and models implemented by the agency”.

In the coming month, the sector minister revealed that the YEA programmes will include, “the work abroad program, designed to facilitate placing Ghanaian youth in job vacancy existing in other countries”

 In the meantime, the agency has received employment request from Japan, Australia and the Cayman Islands.

“The agency will continue to set up structures at the regional and district levels to support employment of the youth. The agency is also planning to roll out other initiatives such as, the Akumfi Chalk making program, which is expected to employ over 100 youth. The artisan directory is also expected to recruit over 5,000 beneficiaries”.

Some employment in the informal sector, which has relatively been given little attention, particularly in areas pertaining to domestic workers was addressed by the Employment Minister.

 “But in practice, we have noticed that some aspects of work are either not considered as formal work or not considered as work at all, but people gain their means of livelihood from those works. And we thought that we could not be fair to Ghanaians when we extend this work to all other sectors and leave out this sector…. I am referring to domestic work”.

The sector ministry cautioned patron of domestic workers to take cognizance of the law as being oblivious to it does not warrant mistreatment or underpayment of domestic worker.

He further advised that their welfare must be subject to the dictates of the law.

“Government has passed a labour domestic workers regulation 2020, LI 2408 to establish a governance framework… and ensure full labour protection of domestic workers. The new regulation is a precursor to the lifting of the temporary ban on recruitment of domestic workers to all parts of the world. It all provides the basis for executing bilateral labour agreement with destination countries.”