Experts Underscore Involvement of Private Sector to Accomplish Gov't Job Creation Agenda

ENA February  8/2020 Active participation of the private sector is crucial to accomplish the job creation plan of the Government of Ethiopia, experts said.

In an exclusive interview with ENA the economist Costentinos Beruh-Tesefa (PHD) said the government alone cannot achieve the plan to create huge number of jobs to the youth.

The National Job Creation Action Plan states that 14 million jobs need to be created between the years 2020 and 2025 to absorb the new entrants to the labor market and the current backlog of unemployed citizens. At present an estimated more than 2 million youth are entering the labor market every year.

Contentinos said the private sector should implement strategies and programs that would help to create more jobs to the youth and meet heir social responsibility. This will ease the big burden from the government.

“The private sector should implement new programs for job creation. For this, they are expected to prepare capital that has to be used for job creation to the youth; because the job creation agenda is not only for profit but also for the benefit of the country,” he elaborated.

The economist noted that job creation in Ethiopia is currently highly dependant on the public sector. But the private sector could be the major driver for job creation.

Presently, one of the drivers of job creation among the private sector is Dashen Bank, which   has created job scheme by allocating about 100 million birr this Ethiopian fiscal year.

Dashen Bank  Marketing and Customer Experience Director, Aschalew Tamiru said it is not an easy for the government to create huge number of jobs alone. Thus supporting its effort is the corporate responsibility of the private sector.

In this respect, the project of Dashen Bank is aimed at reducing the unemployment rate by diversifying job creation by providing financial aid to talented individuals, the director added.

The bank will work on building the capacity of small and medium scale enterprises and give them credit, help individuals to attend higher education programmes, and establish business clubs that can sponsor individuals that have business ideas and talents.

“We believe that unemployment in the country cannot be solved by only one institution. We are  contributing our share to job creation, because this is the responsibility of all the private actors. And I believe that other private companies and financial institutions will follow our best experiences,” Aschalew underscored.

Though the private sector is expected to support the National Job Creation Action Plan, creating conducive environment and access to finance remains the government's responsibility to enable them to offer more jobs to the youth.  

Yet, the National Job Creation Action Plan states that credit provided to the private sector continues to represent a small share, which is only 36 percent of domestic credit, while credit to the public sector represents more than 63 percent.