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The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo, has said that the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) is the hub for blue collar jobs in Nigeria.
Keyamo said this during the NDE Special Day event at the 44th Kaduna International Trade Fair, in Kaduna, Kaduna State.
At the opening session of the Trade Fair in Kaduna on “Promoting Value Addition for Sustainable Growth and Development,” the Minister, who is also the chairman of the NDE Board, said that the skills acquisition programme of the NDE such as Entrepreneurship Development Programme, the Rural Employment Promotion and the Special Public Works activities, are all in line with the economic policy thrust of the Federal Government which has special focus on employment creation for sustainable growth and development for national economy.
Represented by the Director-General of NDE, Keyamo added that NDE has several skill-sets and a spectrum of training schemes which are demand-driven and capable of taking thousands of jobless youths out of the streets.
Earlier, the Director-General of the NDE, Mallam Abubakar Nuhu Fikpo, represented by the Director, Vocational Skills Development (VSD), Isa Abdu, disclosed that the directorate had created over four million jobs through its four core programmes, which are Vocational Skills Development (VSD), Small Scale Enterprises (SSE), Rural Employment Promotion (REP) and Special Public Works (SPW).
He further informed the gathering that the directorate has harnessed gains of agricultural value chain under its various schemes to create additional 80,000 jobs, adding that the directorate in the last one year had also granted loans to beneficiaries to stabilise their enterprises.
The Director-General said NDE is a regular participant at international trade fairs organised in the country to provide opportunities for the beneficiaries of her various skills acquisition programmes in order to showcase efforts and commitment of the Federal Government at self-employment creation.
He said skills acquisition and entrepreneurship development are paramount to national economic growth and individual survival. He appealed to the unemployed in the country to avail themselves to the job and self-employment opportunities being presented by the directorate nationwide.
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