Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State has said the state faces dwindling employment opportunities despite the increasing population of graduates being produced by the universities.
Speaking during a courtesy visit to the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday, he said very few employment opportunities in the government set-up exist at the moment.
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He expressed concern that apart from few teachers that the government has been able to employ, the state is handicapped considering the number of graduates coming out of the universities.
He further sought partnership with the NDE to curb the menace of unemployment in the state, saying “The only way that we can guarantee employment is through entrepreneurship. Where there is no employment in the civil service, and white-collar jobs do not exist, to build an entrepreneur is a great thing.
“If you are trained, there is no way you will not have one person to work with you, and you will train others. The federal government is doing wonderful work to relieve most of us in the state of people who are jobless”.
According to the governor, partnership with the NDE would also help tackle hitches caused by the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, stressing that “Whether we like it or not, it is going to change our lifestyle permanently. We need to have intervention in employment.”
In his remark, the NDE Director General, Dr. Mohammad Nasir Ladan, said that the agency is committed and ready to partner with the Ondo government, saying, “We are always interested and ready to collaborate with people who have their people at their heart.”
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