The Ghanaian-European Centre for Jobs, Migration and Development (GEC) in collaboration with the Labour Department of the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations (MELR) has launched the sixth edition of its annual career fair in Accra.
Dubbed, Ghana Career and Migration Fair 2023, it will bring together Ghanaian, German and European stakeholders to explore opportunities to improve youth employment through technical and vocational skills training for sustainable job creation, entrepreneurship, and skills development for skilled labour migration in Germany and the European Union (EU).
The event also aimed at sensitising the Ghanaian labour market stakeholders within the skilled labour migration sector, on employment opportunities, including skilled employment, education, technical and vocational training opportunities within the West African sub-region and the EU job market.
Slated for November 29, 2023, at the University of Professional Studies Accra (UPSA) auditorium, it will among other things focus on how successfully trained and talented young people will find jobs and also how they can be upskilled to be competitive in the global market and thus further develop the local market.
As the country’s youthful population continues to grow, the GEC is confident the fair will add to government’s effort towards providing an enabling environment that facilitates the creation of decent employment for the youth.
Component Manager of the GEC, Kwaku Yeboah added that the fair will feature capacity-building components in the area of soft skills development and is open to about 2000 people.
He noted that: “The Career and Migration Fair 2023 is one of the media through which the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is supporting the Ghanaian European Centre of GIZ Ghana to explore the benefits of a 360 degrees migration circle in creating opportunities for employment and skills training for the youth.
“The 360-degree migration circle concept implies that GEC deals with all aspects of migration: before, during and after migration.”
The country has to create over a million jobs to be able to absorb the youth unemployment numbers and this Director for Research and Planning at the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), Agya Yaw Nsiah said must be a shared responsibility.
“For us, it is a shared responsibility and not the duty of one government entity, private sector or development partners. We all need to come together to work closely and impactfully to be able to provide jobs for young people,” he said.
He added that the economy has been growing but not at a rate to provide more jobs for young people, hence other opportunities must be explored.
“We believe the best resources we have is the human capital and so if we have unemployment situations in the country then it is good to explore how the Ghanaian talent can work elsewhere to as their culture and economic benefits.
“This programme is very important and we believe that it is going to be more than what we have seen in previous years. We want to engage young people,” he said.
Since 2018, GEC has connected approximately 16,891 jobseekers to 413 employers, with 1140 out of 1455 vacancies filled. The Ghana career fair is the GEC’s flagship annual event, and has continuously evolved over the years: physical, virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hybrid and decentralized, in Accra, Kumasi, Sunyani and Tamale.
