New job seekers short of skills: GIZ

Arusha. About 800,000 young people entering the labour market in Tanzania every year are short of skills to undertake any significant productive work, it was said here on Monday.

“Employment remains a challenge for them because they have not been provided with skills, training and resources they need to contribute to the economy,” said Dr Kirstein Focken, the cluster coordinator of the German aid agency, GIZ, in Arusha.

She said despite efforts by the government to engage them in agriculture, the backbone of the country’s economy, the contribution of the new entrants to the job market was insignificant due to the shortage of skills.

“For Tanzania to reap the benefits of its growing youth population, it is more important than ever to provide them with the skills,” she said when speaking during the on-going East Africa Youth Leadership Summit (YouLead 2018).

Nearly 67 per cent of the workforce in Tanzania is engaged in agriculture and the government has been encouraging youth to become more professionally involved in the sector as part of efforts to address unemployment.

Dr Focken, who oversees GIZ activities in the East African Community (EAC), emphasised that human talent was key in transforming the bloc into a competitive and industrial middle class income region.

She explained: “We’re sure this gathering will deliver new insights, perspective and create valuable connections. East Africa must be transformed into a competitive economic bloc.”

Opening the Summit at the former Danish Centre in Usa River, East African Legislative Assembly Speaker Martin Ngoga said youth accounted for 60 per cent of the population of EAC now estimated at 170 million.

He said unemployment due to lack of technical and entrepreneurial skills were the main challenges facing the youth and called on the policy makers in the region to devise ways to support them.