National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in Gombe State says it trained no fewer than 500 women and youths in vocational skills, under its various schemes in the first quarter of 2023.
Coordinator of NDE in the state, Mr Jediel Stephen, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Gombe.
Stephen said that the youth were trained on various skills, under the directorate’s ‘school-on-wheels’ vocational training, amongst other programmes.
“The skill acquisition programmes were initiated to improve the economic status of the unemployed women and youth to make them self-reliant, in view of the non-available white-collar jobs.
“The skills acquired, when put to use, will go a long way to improve the wellbeing of the youth and those of their families.
“We have recorded lots of success stories in that regard,” he said.
The coordinator said that some of the trainees were given settlement packages in form of loans to enable them set up their businesses and become self-reliant and employers of labour.
He said that the resettlement loan package would be repaid in three years.
The NDE coordinator noted that the Federal Government was doing a lot to empower youths and women to enable them become self-reliant and also make them part of the solution to the issue of unemployment.
He said that the federal government was currently gathering data of all unemployed youths in the state with the aim of ascertaining the distribution of unemployed persons by age, sex, qualification and geographical locations.
Stephen said that with the data, the federal government would develop a veritable source of unemployment data for the NDE data bank, which was needed for programme planning, monitoring and evaluation.
“I appeal to all stakeholders in the employment generation sector of the country to support the efforts of the NDE to combat the menace of unemployment, as we cannot do it alone,” he said. (NAN)
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