The Federal Government has inaugurated the National Employment Council to look into the situation of unemployment in the country.
Speaking on the new development, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige said there was a need for a shift from reactive and temporary measures to curbing the menace of rising unemployment in the country.
“As job creation policies and programme must anticipate future labour market requirements rather than reacting to it. In coordinating implementation of strategies to fast-track employment creation, we must bear in mind that such strategies are most likely to be successful.
“That is, if it anticipates future labour market requirement rather than reacting to them. We have to move away from past approaches where strategies for employment creation and poverty alleviation were a response to a crisis or a temporary measure to mitigate the impact, ‘’ he said.
Ngige, who noted that unemployment was a global challenge, observed that Nigeria like other nations needed to make concerted efforts towards curbing the menace.
The minister added that the concern is even more urgent due to the association of youth idleness to perennial violent crimes in the different parts of the country which poses a threat to socio-economic stability.
Ngige said that the task before the inaugurated council was formidable and expressed confidence in the ability of the Council to come up with the solutions to the menace.
According to the minister, the council should in the medium and long-term reverse the current alarming trend of unemployment.
Earlier in his address, Mr Bolaji Adebiyi, Permanent Secretary in the ministry, affirmed that unemployment, underemployment and poverty are critical challenges that would require the concerted efforts of all stakeholders to address.
Adebiyi said it was in a bid to holistically address the unemployment crisis that the National Employment Policy was formulated.
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