Okechukwu Nnodim, Abuja

The Federal Government on Tuesday announced that it would locate job centres in all local government areas across the country before the end of March next year.

The government stated that the job centres, with at least one in every local government, will be used to gather data on the actual number of unemployed persons in the country, adding that it was perfecting all requisite processes needed to actualise this.

Speaking during a panel discussion on addressing Nigeria’s unemployment challenge at the 48th Annual National Conference of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria in Abuja, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Dr. Paul Adalikwu, stated that the centres would address the lack of data for unemployed persons, adding that currently, no one seemed to know the exact number of jobless people across the country.

“For the first time in Nigeria, that process is being perfected and precisely by the first quarter of next year, we are going to have the processes put in place where unemployed graduates can register their data for proper planning and coordination across the country. So, by the first quarter of next year, we will have our job centres in all local governments in Nigeria,” he said.

Explaining how the centres would work, Adalikwu said desk officers would be stationed at the outfits to encourage unemployed graduates to come and register their data in order to boost planning.

He said the government would occasionally get and collate data from all the centres and would adequately decide what to do with respect to job creation, adding that the development would help enhance computation on budgetary provisions for the creation of jobs in states.

The permanent secretary also stated that the government had increased the number of skill acquisition centres and that this was in order to enhance the capacities of the unskilled and semi-skilled workforce in the country.

– PUNCH