Nigeria has job opportunities but no skills, manpower – ITF
The Industrial Training Fund (ITF), has said there are abundance of job opportunities in the country but job seekers lacks the required skills to access the jobs.
ITF Director
The ITF Director General, Sir Joseph Ari, said the Fund is working tirelessly to correct the trend, adding that the worrying situation has kept the ITF on its toes with the aim to train millions of Nigerian youths on skill acquisition and required manpower.
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“Nigeria has job opportunities but no skills, manpower, and the ITF is working hard to correct this trend”, Ari said.
The DG also lamented that “It is common knowledge that as a nation, we are contending with the problems of poverty and unemployment, the strange paradox is that despite these, vacancies still exist in various sectors of the national economy”.
According to him, “skills gap survey showed that vacancies existed in four sectors namely, Services, Agriculture, Construction and Transportation, that were in some cases being filled by non-Nigerians because of the absence of Nigerians with the requisite technical skills.
“To prepare Nigerians to effectively take over these sectors, beginning from 2016, the Fund initiated a number of skills acquisition programmes particularly targeted at the mentioned sectors”.
However speaking yesterday at the Funds 2019 Merit Awards in Jos, the Plateau State capital, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Richard Adebayo said the ministry will double its efforts to support the Funds in equipping more Nigerians with required skills that will enable them compete for favourable jobs.
Represented by the Director-General of Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, (NECA), Timothy Olawale, Adebayo said with ITF mandate, the situation is surmountable.
According to him, the perceived unemployment in the country is as a results of existing skills gaps which hinder citizens from being gainfully employed, adding that the lack of skills narrative is being corrected by the ITF which is working hard to equip citizens with skills for gainful employment.
On his part, the Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, through his Commissioner for Special Duties, Jerry Werr, said the ITF has contributed effectively to the State development through training of citizens, saying that government is willing to continue to support the Fund’s activities as it concerns human capital development”.
