Sunyani, Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021
Mr. Atta Akoto Senior, President of the Sunyani Youth Development Association (SYDA) has pleaded with government to increase tax incentives for business owners so that taxes would not be the burden and bottleneck for companies not employing many youth.
He was speaking at a-day ‘Digital Job Fair’ held on Friday in Sunyani to build the career of fresh graduates and job seekers to help eliminate the unemployment situation and called on stakeholders to actively participate in events to find solutions to the menace of unemployment in Ghana.
Saying, unemployment is a major societal problem that needed solution through in-depth research and strategies from stakeholder institutions such as the educational sector.
The event to enhance employability skills of Ghanaian youth was on the theme: “Building Resilient Creatives For The Market” seeks to offer a common platform for startups, entrepreneurs, students, investors, companies, and Business owners to exhibit their goods and services to attract relevant attention.
It was organized by GrassRoot Hub in collaboration with Ghana Tech Lab through the support of Master Card Foundation, the World Bank and the Ministry of Communication and Digitization Ghana.
GrassRoots Hub is a social enterprises that focuses on connecting business startups to well established entrepreneurs and organizations to help seek the wellbeing of youth and unemployed citizens through digital job creation for successful and improved livelihood.
Miss Diana Kwaaba, the GrassRoots Hub manager in Sunyani said the Digital Job Fair was also designed to recognize the role and activities of the youths in society and enhance their employability.
The event also trained participants on personal branding, interview practices, networking, access to free workshop and seminars to improve their skills and employment chances, she said.
She noted “seeking for job in recent times has become a herculean task for the teaming youth and resulted in rapid growth of unemployment population in Ghana, particularly in the Bono region, due to multifaceted reasons”.
According to Miss Kwaaba, most people attributed the unemployment situation to lack of skills, adding, the educational curriculum currently rolled out in the country also focuses only on theory and neglect the practicals aspect amidst the unavailability of ready existing jobs.
The situation, she therefore said demands stakeholders collaboration and discussions to arrive at a comprehensive solution that could address it head-on and generally combat the unemployment menace, hence, the event.
Miss Kwaaba said the event was also to support made in Ghana products promotion and encouraged fashion designers, hairdressers, and other groups into production of local goods to ensure their products and services were attractive for the competitive local market for job creation.
In her address, Madam Fati Bamba, the Bono Regional Director, National Youth Authority noted indecent appearances of job seekers was one of the major factors of the growing unemployment population and suggested periodic workshop on in that regard to ensure they appear decent.
Participants, mostly fresh graduates had the opportunity to network with potential employers who uncovered job opportunities in their industries and gave chance for startups to exhibit their products and services.
The employers also used the digital job fair platform to sensitized job seekers on basic requirements companies look out for in employment processes.
SYDA
Credit: Christopher Tetteh