Jonathan Harps On Importance Of Job Creation In Africa

African leaders face special challenges in the sphere of job creation because of its youthful population, President Jonathan declared yesterday while speaking on the theme of the forum which is Creating Jobs and Forging Inclusive Growth. While noting that the need to create jobs was a global problem, Jonathan observed:
“If you walk down the streets in Europe, the median age of the person you see is about 40 years. In Asia, the median age of the person on the street is 29 years. In Africa, this median age is only 20 years, so it means that about half of the population in Africa today is under the age of 20 years.”
“Demographers are also predicting that this youth population is going to grow even further. McKinsey, the consulting firm, has calculated that an additional 122 million workers will enter Africa’s labor force by 2020. And that, by 2035, the combined size of the African labor force would be greater than that of the most heavily populated countries in the world, including China. This is daunting, and should be a wake-up call to all of us in Africa to work harder on job creation with a great sense of urgency. We have a lot of young people who are unemployed but who also do not necessarily have the required competencies or skills, even if the jobs are available
and that again, is a major challenge.”
On what Nigeria is doing about job creation, the president of Africa’s largest economy  stated that job creation has been the main focus of the country’s  ongoing Transformation Agenda – “which is our programme to modernise and diversify the Nigerian economy”.
“Job creation is one of the concerns that keep me up at night, and it has been the main theme of our Federal Government Budget in recent years.  We recognize that the private sector will be the engine of growth and job-creation. And we are putting in place the necessary conditions to support this private sector growth, such as: ensuring a stable macroeconomic environment (low inflation, stable exchange rates and so on), investing in critical infrastructure (roads, railways, power etc.), and investing in the development of skills of our people.”
“Nigeria has grown rapidly over the past decade – at about 7 percent per annum. Of course we are now also the largest economy on the continent and the 26th largest in the world. After our GDP rebasing exercise, our GDP for 2013 is now estimated at about 510 billion US Dollars. Yet, the quality of our growth has been less than desirable in the sense that we are not creating as many decent jobs as we need to.”
“That is why we have focused on a number of priority sectors which have high job-creating potential, such as agriculture, manufacturing, housing & construction, and the services sectors. And in each of these sectors, we are working to unlock the various obstacles faced by businesses so they create jobs. We are learning from the example of other countries – such as China – to see what they have done in this regard to create jobs for their citizens”, Jonathan said.