Ethiopian gov't says over 880,000 jobs created in past 6 months

ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian government on Tuesday disclosed that more than 880,000 job opportunities that targeted Ethiopian youth were created during the past six-month period.

The reported job opportunities were created as part of the Ethiopian government's job-creation initiative during the first half of the current Ethiopian 2016-2017 Ethiopian fiscal year, according to the report by the Ethiopian Ministry of Youth and Sports.

The ministry, however, stressed that security-related problems that are witnessed in the East African country have created challenges in its job creation endeavors, in which only 68 percent of the initial target was achieved during the stated period.

The Ethiopian government, among other things, provides trainings, raw materials and creates value-chain for youngsters as part of its job-creation initiative.

According to the Ethiopian Urban Job Creation and Food Security Council, the East African country had created over 1.7 million job opportunities through the government's initiative during last fiscal year.

The council, which had been implementing a platform to register job-seekers across the country, had an initial plan to benefit 2.1 million citizens through the initiative during the reported period.

Ethiopia's manufacturing sector, followed by the construction industry, was said to be at the forefront in creating jobs for the burgeoning working class Ethiopians.

From the total of 1.7 million Ethiopians who had secured jobs last fiscal year, 71 percent of them were youngsters, while 61,000 were graduates from higher education institutes and 128,000 others were graduates of technical and vocational schools across the country.

Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous nation with a population of more than 100 million, has a plan to construct some 15 industrial parks across the country during the second five-year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-II) period from 2016 to 2020.

The construction of industrial zones across the country is considered as an impetus to create more jobs for the country's burgeoning youth population. Enditem