Despite complaints of a high unemployment rate in Ghana, Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government has employed 350,000 Ghanaians in the public sector in two years.

According to Dr Bawumia, the government has given clearance for people to be recruited as nurses, teachers, as well as personnel at the Forestry Commission and security services.

Speaking at the launch of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) Job Centre at the Bank of Ghana Auditorium at the University of Ghana in Accra on Wednesday, 2 October 2019, Dr Bawumia said: “We’ve implemented a Nation Builders Corps (NABCo) which has employed 100,000 graduates, who, otherwise, would have been sitting at home and this is a step in building the job skills of our graduates to be absorbed into the work force.

“The available data shows that recruitment and financial clearances for the security services, nurses, teachers, Forestry [Commission] and NABCo and so on, the last two years alone, we’ve employed 350,000 people in the public sector.”

Dr Bawumia added that the government has resolved to help train nurses by restoring the nurse trainee allowance, restoring the teacher trainee allowance and abolishing the fees of postgraduate medical students.

The Vice-President further noted that the government recognises that the public sector alone cannot absorb all the unemployed youth and, therefore, the Akufo-Addo-led administration will rely on the private sector.

“This means that we have to improve the business environment. Fundamentally, we have to reduce the cost of doing business and the government has been on this particular path in the last couple of years and we’ve done a number of things to reduce the cost of doing business,” he said.

The primary goal of the YEA Job Centre is to strategically position the agency to serve as a one-stop-shop to provide skills and connect job seekers to employers aimed at addressing the unemployment concerns of the youth of the country.