The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige says the launch of the Labour Statistics System will tackle the high rate of unemployment in Nigeria.
The Minister who disclosed this to members of the Labour Correspondents Association of Nigeria (LACAN) in Abuja, added that the Nigerian government would soon launch the programme as part of efforts to reduce the unemployment rate in the country.
According to him, when fully operational, unemployed Nigerians at home and abroad could apply for available jobs.
Ngige made reference to the United States of America where he said that the Department of Labour issues labour statistics, “Which is a very vital statistics needed for tackling unemployment.
“With labour statistics and matching, you can fight unemployment. With that, you know who is where at any given time. And people abroad, especially those with specialities, who want to come back, can enter that system to know where to apply to for jobs.”
While giving the assurance that the system would come up in the next one month or two and domicile at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, he recalled that his ministry earlier established a labour exchange system for merging and cross-matching labour supply and demand in the country.
“In our electronic labour exchange system, both the people who are looking for work and recruiters can enter the system where we merge and match them.
“We do what is called cross-matching and people are gainfully employed. This is facilitation of employment,” the Minister said.
Ngige revealed that his Ministry has gotten involved in some international projects with foreign partners, which Nigeria has not before now been doing, adding that for the first time, the American Government was putting up a grant for women and children in Nigeria and Liberia.
According to the Minister, “For children, they are doing that to stop child labour. You know that child labour is a kind of poverty.
“People who ask their children to go to mines are looking for money from those miners. It is the same thing with hawking. Children are on the streets hawking while others are in school. They are in the streets hawking to make ends meet. The same goes for cocoa plantation.
“We are fighting child labour. The American government has agreed to assist us. We have two programmes, one is for $5 million and another one for $ 4 million is specific to Nigeria for areas where granite, columbites and others are mined.
“We have not been loud in announcing them because we don’t want the American Government to withdraw when the programmes take off, we can announce.
“A Nigerian implementer has been appointed for the programmes while the ILO will be rendering technical assistance.”
While applauding the ILO for being up and doing in the area of technical assistance, he urged the organisation to sustain the momentum.
Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Ms Kachollom Daju, said that the Ministry has started training LACAN members for them to be abreast with the functions and technical details of the Ministry adding that the Ministry of Labour and Employment is a very technical one.
According to the Permanent Secretary, the training would improve the reportage of Journalists as they would report happenings in the Ministry from the point of knowledge.
Responding to the achievements reeled out by the Minister, the Chairman of LACAN, Mr Joseph Agi-Ajochi commended the Minister for the successes over the years and called for sustained progress in the remaining months of the present administration.
He said that LACAN and the Ministry of Labour and Employment have enjoyed a mutual relationship which he said: “Even went beyond just the official duties of the two.”
He also commended the move by the Ministry to build the capacity of labour correspondents which it started in December last year, to get them in the know about the activities of the Ministry, its Parastatals and Departments.
It would be recalled that Members of LACAN were in December 2022, trained on the functionalities of the Ministry’s Department of Safety and Healthy with the Ministry promising that the training would be a continuous one.
PIAK
