Construction to Create a Million Jobs for Vulnerable

The built environment – a description of the productivity along the building and construction value chain – is expected to throw out between 700,000 and a million jobs within the next 10 years and this requires stakeholders to develop and prepare the youth, particularly, to take advantage of the opportunity, a new study by Global Communities has established.

The jobs are likely to be found in the construction value chain and ancillary sectors such as marketing and research, policy and advocacy ventures, which young people between the ages of 17 and 24, who form the bulk of the country’s population, could take advantage of with the requisite training and skills development.

Youth in Construction Summit

Opening the Youth in Construction Summit in Accra, the Minister of State in charge of Public, Private Partnership and Private Sector Development (PPP & PSD), Mr Rasheed Pelpuo, said it was important for skills training and professionalism in the built environment to bring standards and quality up to speed with what pertained in every advanced economy.

He said the country’s status as a middle-income economy would require quality infrastructure to go with it, saying “we need to train the young people appropriately; skills building is very important and unique for our economy.”

Mr Pelpuo also called for a social orientation to sensitise the youth to how they perceived jobs and employment, so that fresh graduates did not queue for years on end in search of white collar or government jobs.

That also calls for more skills training and youth development institutions to churn out a lot more people with employable skills who could also set up their own entrepreneurship and take advantage of opportunities to be created in the construction industry.

YIEDIE

The Minister of State commended Global Communities for initiating the Youth Inclusive Entrepreneurial Development Initiative For Employment (YIEDIE), a youth development and advocacy programme, and called on the private sector to take up the challenge of partnering with the government to deliver infrastructure under the PPP model.

YIEDIE, which is aimed at creating opportunities for the youth in Ghana’s construction industry, has announced plans to create 23,700 jobs in five years.

The project, which is under the Global Communities Partners for Good, targets cities such as Accra, Kumasi, Sekondi-Takoradi, Tema and Ashaiman.

The Project Director of YIEDIE Ghana, Mrs Kafui Vera Mills-Odoi, stated that the project aimed at training young people in new methods of construction using modern technology.

“YIEDIE will directly reach at least 23,700 youth with training in technical, life and entrepreneurship skills leading to employment,” she said, and added that “the project applies an integrated, youth-led market-systems model to improve the capacity of youth and service providers across the value chain,” she said.

Mrs Mills-Odoi stated that the programme would train young women and men in technical construction skills and help already established ones to grow.

YIEDIE is a five-year project to create economic opportunities in Ghana’s construction sector for the economically disadvantaged youth.

It is implemented by Global Communities, Youth Empowerment Synergy, Artisans Association of Ghana, African Aurora Business Network, and hfc Boafo, in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation.

Source: Daily Graphic