The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) has provided employment opportunities for over 84,000 youth in various sectors of national life in the first half of the year.

The number, which is in excess of its 2023 target by 16 per cent, involves modules under its traditional mandate.

Officials said the agency also created some jobs for the youth under the innovative modules carved out to ensure that more Ghanaian youth got skills and employment.

Giving the breakdown, the Chief Executive of the YEA, Kofi Baah Agyapong, said the employment opportunities included 15,000 Community Protection Assistants; 6,000 Community Health Workers; 1,500 Youth in Prison Support and 5,000 more in the area of Entrepreneurship (Trade and Vocation) being executed in collaboration with the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP).

The rest, he added, were the revamped and remodelled Youth in Sanitation, which had employed 45,000 youth; Artisan Directory, 500; and Job Centres, 11483, making up the 84,483 youth from its traditional modules.

He added that through innovative models, it had commenced a programme with the National Insurance Commission (NIC), where senior high school graduates and first degree holders were being trained to fill vacant positions at the various insurance companies.

He said already, 6,000 people had been enrolled.

Mr Agyapong said the YEA had liaised with Blue Space, an online insurance company, with 2,000 youth trained by the company.

Under the arrangement, the beneficiaries get clients for the company on commission basis in addition to their monthly allowances.

Garment

Mr Agyapong said the authority was on the verge of opening a new opportunity for those interested in the garment and apparel industry.

He said under this new model, dubbed Garment and Apparel Training and Employment Programme, the agency was rolling out a programme to create sustainable opportunities for young people interested in tailoring, general dressmaking and industrial sewing.

He said the trainers who would be selected would be provided with financial support to train the youth who would also be provided with some stipend to be able to undertake the training.

Transition

Mr Agyapong said the agency had put in place an elaborate and effective transition plan that would ensure that more of the beneficiaries transitioned to some of the models or embarked on their own enterprises after the minimum of two years of engagement.

He said with those in the health sector, the authority had started assisting them to secure admission forms and prepare them to enter nursing training institutions, among other forms of support.

Mr Agyapong noted that in discussions prior to the training, it was agreed in principle through the signing of the memoranda of understanding that the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana Prisons Service and the Ghana Health Service would offer the youth working under their schemes a quota when it came to employment or recruitment.

He said because the young ones, after their training, would become familiar with the environment of the police, the prisons and the health service, recruiting them into those services was considered a priority.

He said some of them had also been saving and preparing to enter tertiary institutions, adding that “our models are giving hope and support for the youth to realise their vision and potential to contribute their quota towards the development of the country”.

SOURCE: GraphicOnline