One million jobs for youth to be created over the next four years – Finance Minister

Government has announced an ambitious plan to create one million jobs for the youth over the next three to four years.

Making the revelation during the presentation of the mid-year budget review before Parliament, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta said the initiative is intended to promote and support the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), new ventures and start-ups.

“Mr. Speaker, our intention of building an entrepreneurial nation is already known. We aim to empower our youth to be at ease and venture into business. The clean-up of the financial sector and the invigoration of the entrepreneurial eco-system is expected to help remove the binding constraints of financing and market linkage for our daring youth. Our focus will remain on establishing a strong value system for entrepreneurship to flourish.”

“Mr. Speaker, recognising that more needs to be done, the government is today announcing a “One Million jobs initiative” to aggressively respond to the needs of the country. This is to promote growth in SMEs, support new ventures, and stimulate innovation and start-ups,” Ofori-Atta revealed.

“We are also feverishly working on a scheme that enables the private sector to train new recruits/entrants at a subsidized rate by Government. The clean-up of the financial sector and the invigoration of the entrepreneurial eco-system is expected to help remove the binding constraints of financing and market linkage for our daring youth. Our focus will remain on establishing a strong value system for entrepreneurship to flourish,” he said.

The finance minister said that the private sector is being positioned to have an all-inclusive approach towards mitigating the youth unemployment menace.