Teams begin data collection for announced 350,000 jobs

Members of the National Observatory of Employment and Vocational Training of the Ministry of Employment and Vocational Training together with staff of the devolved services of the National Employment Fund and the Integrated Support Programme for Actors of the Informal Sector, PIAASI are combing the nooks and crannies of the country’s ten regions, counting jobs that have been created in the first months of 2015.

The exercise that began on March 9, 2015, and ends on April 5, 2015, falls within the framework of the creation of 350,000 jobs for the fiscal year announced by the Head of State, Paul Biya, in his address to the youths on February 10, 2015 in prelude to the National Youth Day, as well as during the end-of-of-year nation’s address on December 31, 2014.

Within this period, teams will work with human resource departments of public and para-public enterprises as well as Non-governmental Organisations that have had authorisation to operate. The Coordinator of the Technical Secretariat of the National Observatory of Employment and Vocational Training, Samuel Inack Inack, says the ongoing operation will help identify and or count jobs created.

Forms will be handed out to business groups whereby staff of the personnel department are expected to list the number of jobs created, be they temporal or permanent. Governors have put in place data collection networks. Other networks have been created at Divisional and Sub-divisional levels.

Inack reveals that in order to measure the performance rate of the country’s employment sector, it was indispensable to from time to time make a count of those injected into the job sector. “By June, we should have data for all those who have gained employment in Cameroon from January,” notes Inack. According to the Economist, “we will not wait for the end of the year to reveal figures.” The number of jobs created will be published progressively, after every six months.

The exercise will act as a springboard for decision-making. It will equally serve as an indicator to classify the best 100 enterprises in matters of job creation.

The Prime Minister created an inter-ministerial steering committee up of employment in April 2013 and this committee is liable to furnish government with all information in the sector.

In 2014, the Ministry of Employment and Vocational Training served hierarchy with figures indicating that the employment spin-offs of the country’s growth policy were confirmed. In 2014, 283,443 new jobs were created against 250,000 projected, said the Head of State in his end-of-year speech to the nation.