Addis Ababa — :- Ethiopia has created 3.1 million jobs this EFY by overcoming domestic and global challenges, according to Ministry of Labor and Skills.
Labor and Skills State Minister, Nigusu Tilahun told ENA that the nation created the stated number against the 3.7 million planned for the year.
According to him, out of the total 100,000 were created overseas.
The plan to create 3 million jobs each year was formulated in 2020 by the government, the state minister stated, adding that since then Ethiopia has been working to create a total of 14 million new jobs by 2025 and 20 million new jobs by 2030.
The aim is to create sustainable and decent jobs for two million citizens each year.
"The reason why we are planning so is because 2 million job seekers join the job market each year, and we have of course the backlog. So to reduce unemployment significantly and to create sustainable and decent jobs, Ethiopia needs to create 3 million jobs each year," Nigusu explained.
He disclosed the creation of 3 million jobs every year was mostly successful, except in the past Ethiopian Fiscal Year.
"Since 2020, that is for the last two years, the plan has been successfully accomplished. But last year we failed to achieve the plan because of local and international problems."
International challenges and pressures, including the Russia-Ukraine war and the COVID-19 pandemic, have been largely affecting the economic stability and challenging the job creation in Ethiopia, the state minister pointed out.
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To withstand these and other pressures, a platform was set up from woreda to federal levels to assist the unemployed get jobs.
He pointed out that the federal and regional governments largely facilitate the coordination of job creation at the lower echelons of administration based on their assessed overall local potentials for the job opportunities.
Thus, despite the challenges, our data indicate that we have created 3.1 million jobs as verified by an independent institution.
"The data is verified. (And) each year, we verify whether these jobs are created or not, whether these data are reliable or not," he stated.
"During the six month performance this year, we had an investigation and verification by an independent institution and that finding indicated that 83 percent of the data are reliable, but we need to reduce 17 percent because of the unreliability of the data."
